


Truth Of the Past

by cuckooclover



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Betrayal, Confusing, F/M, Friendship, Lolu's really toned down to Atlantis: Lost Empire level, Memory Alteration, On a hiatus, Over Powered Character(s), Time Travel, Wow at this point this fanfic should be known as casually bullshitting through stuff, like really over powered, like time changing over powered, the start's really bad also since it was written in 2015
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 36,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5063437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuckooclover/pseuds/cuckooclover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy and the rest of Team Natsu goes back in time to the year X91, and they help the celestial spirits to protect Ophiuchus... their eclipse forms, anyway. However, they soon discover that they need to stop their owner who would do anything to become immortal. But is there a secret Leo is hiding that will put them all in danger? HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the prologue of this fanfic, which is mostly to cover up the plot holes of the ECS arc. And the celestial spirits are in their eclipse forms. In the past. Please don't hate me.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Fairy Tail is not owned by me. In fact, it is owned by Hiro Mashima!
> 
> WARNING: This fanfic includes angst.

The usually feisty golden horned ram spirit sat down onto the dull floor of the Spirit World as she and Virgo, Aquarius and waited nervously for the golden clad lion spirit to come back. It has been around an hour since he left...

Three days in the human world.

"Hope Leo is alright... It wasn't even necessary..." She thought.

Even though the Human World have a lot of Ethernano...

There's almost no hope.

Suddenly, with a whoosh, the lion spirit was laying on the ground, sweating as he panted heavily with wide eyes.

Aries, Aquarius and Virgo raised up their heads

Sure he was wounded and battle worn...

But alive nonetheless.

They stood up and ran to Leo.

"Leo-Kun, a-are we..."

"The punishment wasn't that bad... right?"

"Please be all right, Leo."

The three shot out question after question...

yet Leo wasn't responding at all.

They all stopped asking questions as Leo stood up.

"I lost," he whispered.

"H-huh?"

"I said," he started as he faced the three other spirits. Aquarius, Virgo and Aries gasped.

"I lost," he finished as he stared at them.

His face showed no emotion.

At all.

His face didn't show embarrassment,

His face didn't show frustration,

Just...

Nothing.

"We can never be free. We are forever chained to the chains of slavery," he said as he walked away, back facing them.

"Leo..." Started Virgo.

They paused.

Something was missing.

They all gasped when they realised.

"H-How could h-he do that?" Whispered Aquarius, trying to hold back tears.

"Of all the punishments... This one's the worst..." Whispered Virgo, one tear slipping out.

"T-that was what made him physically Leo the Lion... Why... Out of all of us, why does he have to recieve this?!" said Aries, absolutely crying now.

"Even if he has god like powers... He's a monster..." they sobbed as Leo walked away.


	2. Sent Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in present day, Lucy and Team Natsu are on a job to defeat a mysterious Mage. However, that Mage has a trick up her sleeve... something Team Natsu's all familiar with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I post it now? Can't wait.

Lucy woke up with a start. It was still dark outside the tent. Natsu's snoring can still be heard.

"Strange... Why did I dream of the eclipse celestial spirits?" She whispered. The memory of them threatening to leave Lucy permanently was still fresh in Lucy's mind, almost making her sad. That's the reason why she's taking more jobs than usual, even doing solo missions to try and forget about the whole incident.

But the dream.

It was rather... like a memory instead of an illusion.

"But it's just a dream though…" thought Lucy as she slumped back, slowly falling asleep again.

 

"Luce? Hey, Luce, wake up, sleepy head!" Lucy opened her eyes, dazed.

"Is it day time already?"

"Aye. And remember the job we're on. Apparently, the Mage we're supposed to capture is only supposed to be present at early in the morning, right?"

"Aww, come on! I thought that I could get some more sleep than usual today!"

"Lucy, remember the reward: 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 jewels, and 500 slices of cake," said Erza.

"You're right. If we split the reward, even through the seven of us, then I wouldn't need to go on another job for a long time."

"However, the reward is pretty suspicious, though. That's why we need to be careful," said Charlès.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Asked Gray.

"Gray-San, your clothes," said Wendy and Charlès.

 

Team Natsu appeared at the moor that the Mage was apparently last sighted.

Already, the Mage was waiting for them, obviously visible,

as if expecting for them.

The Mage was a woman, and she wore a pitch black but worn out cloak.

"I've been waiting for you, Lucy Heartfilia," the Mage whispered, barely enough for even Natsu to hear.

"Right, let's finish this once and for all!" Yelled Natsu.

"Roar of the fire dragon!" Flame rushed towards the Mage. Then the flame disappeared.

"Memory make: dispel."

They all looked at her, shocked.

"Where did the flames go?!" Yelled Happy.

"Did she say memory make? Like Rufus?!" Said Lucy.

"I'm still going to get my cake! Requip: heaven's wheel armour! Pentagram sword!"

"Memory make: Horus's eye." The protective symbol of Horus appeared in front of the Mage, shielding her from the attack.

"Horus's eye?! But I've thought that it's only a legend!" Yelled Lucy.

"Huh?"

"Horus's eyes is a god magic spell. God magic is a powerful type of lost magic, in fact, it's believed to be the father of all caster magic. However, I've only heard of such magic in legends. If that Mage had encountered a God magic user, then we're toast!"

"God magic shmod magic, we're defeatin' that Mage!" Yelled Natsu.

"Altogether now! Fire Dragon slayer secret art: Crimson lotus: exploding flame blade!"

"Ice make: cold Excalibur!"

"Sky dragon slayer secret art: shattering light: Sky drill!"

"Demon Sakura blade!"

"Fleuv d'etoile!"

"Memory make: eclipse gate."

"Eclipse gate?!"

Glowing golden metal came out of the Mage's hand, weaving and weaving until in front of the Mage was outline of the eclipse gate.

The gate slowly opened.

Suddenly, golden light rushed towards Lucy, blinding everyone.

Natsu stared, shocked.

"LUCY!" Natsu yelled. But everything seemed completely silent as Lucy disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes.
> 
> I've left a CLIFFHANGER! BWAHAHA!
> 
> But I promise. The eclipsed celestial spirits will come in the next chapter,.
> 
> If they don't , I will dive into a tank full of snakes and cockroaches.
> 
> *Whispers*: Please, please, please, please, please, please... Oh, wait...
> 
> I'm the author of this story.
> 
> Right. Spells:
> 
> Horus's eye: Even though Horus was the Egyptian God of the sky, Horus's left eye often represents protection, sacrifice, healing and restoration.
> 
> Anyway, this story is a bit pre-typed, but because my muse wasn't built on solid ground, I have NO IDEA if I should massively edit it, or just type.
> 
> Yes, my muse is practically the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (Ve~!)x


	3. Former Foes & New Nemesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy is now in the past! Now she meets three of her celestial spirits... their past forms, though. However, now there is a mage with god like powers. Who is that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I'm just gonna update anonymously.

The bright Sun shone on an unconscious Lucy's face as she layed down on the grass. A drop of dew from a leaf dripped onto Lucy's face. She stirred and fluttered her eyes before she properly opened them to see that she was in a vivid green forest of pine and oak. Lucy sat up before rubbing her head.

"Where am I?" She whispered, slightly dazed before standing up. Here, the air was fresher, yet the high amounts of ethernano made Lucy dizzy. Then she remembered.

The past.

The mysterious Mage had sent her back in time.

"No..." She thought.

"No. No, no, this can't be happening," though Lucy. She slammed her eyes shut, wishing that this is all a dream, and when she wakes up, she will be back in her apartment, with probably Natsu-

Natsu.

And Happy.

Erza.

Gray.

Wendy.

Will she see them again? A tear started to form.

Fairy Tail. She will probably never see her family again in this timeline. Silent tears.

And she will never confess to-

"Gah!"

Lucy's thoughts as somebody yelled in frustration. She paused as several birds flew away and a tree crashed down, narrowly missing her. And that voice sounded so familiar...

Lucy timidly turned her head around as the person panted.

She gasped as she see a certain golden clad lion spirit... Though his cape was a noble red.

"Just why the devil does it have to be this hellish way? Just why, why, why," he paused as he heard a twig snap. Lucy paused before holding her mouth to prevent any gasping. Why did she walk towards him?

He turned around.

 

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest...

"Leo?" Shouted out a pink haired maiden spirit clad in leather.

"Leo-Kun?" Shouted out a blue haired water bearer spirit with pigtails. Virgo sighed.

"We should've called Aries over. She knows him better than all the others of the Zodiac. Too bad she's still upset about-"

Virgo choked on her words.

"Those punishments," she finished.

"Aquarius hopes that Leo-Kun is OK-"

"Gah!" Aquarius and Virgo looked towards the direction of the sound as flocks of birds flew by and a tree fell from a distance.

"That must be Leo."

"From the sound of that tree, it sounds like either he's giving himself punishment or he's hitting the tree to relieve anger and stress," said Virgo. They walked towards where the sound came from as it continued.

"Just why the devil does it have to be this hellish way? Just why, why, why" The voice stopped.

"Why did Leo stop yelling?"

"If it's this suddenly, quick. Something must be wrong!" Yelled Virgo worryingly as she and Aquarius quickly picked up the pace.

 

Back at the original location...

Leo stared at Lucy cautiously. Lucy's attention, however, was caught onto the bandages that was tied across Leo's forehead.

Cautiously, he took a step back.

"Wait..." Said Lucy. He took another step back. Suddenly, eclipse Virgo and Aquarius busted out from the undergrowth behind Lucy.

"Leo, are you all-" started Virgo. Lucy turned around, shocked.

"V-Virgo? A-Aquarius? I-I don't understand," said Lucy.

Why are they in their eclipse forms?

She gasped when she saw that Virgo's right arm was in a sling and that bandages wrapped a majority of Aquarius's face.

Even though they're old foes... they're still her friends.

They both took a step back.

"Human, how do you know their names?" Asked Leo in a rude manner. Lucy turned around and paused.

"L-Loke?"

"My name is Leo, human, and who the devil are you?" he yelled.

"Don't you remember?" Whispered Lucy. He looked at her, slightly confused.

"Leo-Kun, that's not how you treat a lady," said Virgo. Leo faced her.

"She's human. And don't call me 'kun', Virgo," he said coldly. Virgo paused. She placed her hand on her head as if to remember something.

"What is it, Virgo-chan?" Asked Aquarius.

"I think I could feel something from my key," she started, slightly panicking.

"It feels like that Calartemis is near," said Virgo worryingly.

"Wait, who's-" Suddenly, black smoke filled the air. Lucy coughed from the smoke. She saw a figure. Lucy squinted through the smoke.

As the smoke cleared, Lucy saw a man with ghostly white hair neatly cut into a pixie cut and hell fire red eyes. He also wore a black trimmed white knee length single breasted waistcoat.

The man walked towards her.

"Cardea transportation," he whispered.

"Well, well, well. You are a snake bearer?" He asked, voice like silk, though with just one hint of insanity. Lucy looked behind her.

Leo, Aquarius and Virgo were frozen. She looked above, and a sparrow was frozen in mid air.

"Don't worry. Only waiting Saturn. Those thing recover will," he whispered.

"Things?" Whispered Lucy.

"Oh, wait for half second. Not you're the snake bearer. In fact," he said, placing his finger on his chin, looking thoughtful.

He walked towards Lucy and whispered into her ear.

"Name your is Lucy Heartfilia," he mockingly whispered.

Lucy gasped.

"Lost, you are? Well, I'll tell you thing. In you're the year X291. From you're Fairy Tail," he whispered further more as he reached for Lucy's keys while Lucy stood still, shocked.

"Oh. And this what? Were you on a job..." He began, fingers circling round Lucy's key ring.

"To forget," he finished as he yanked out Lucy's keys. This time, Lucy reacted.

"Hey! Give me back my keys!" She yelled, hands reaching towards the key ring while the man held it out of reach.

He tutted.

"They're keys only. Has to somebody teach you a lesson, is it?" He asked as he clicked his fingers. Lucy strained to lift her wrists off the ground as something heavy covered them.

She looked at her wrists.

Thick, heavy titanium shackles with the symbol of Saturn appeared on her wrists.

Suddenly, they melted into Lucy's wrists, leaving dark, circular tattoos at where they should be. Lucy stared at the tattoos with disbelief while her wrists stung like the punishments of hell.

"Chains of Saturn. You love being with those thing. Perfect you're for my plan. In fact, don't why you stay with them, forever?" He asked before disappearing. The smoke cleared, and the sparrow moved again. So did the celestial spirits.

They grabbed their wrists, straining against the pain of their wrists. Leo shot a glare at Lucy. He walked towards her.

"Human, what the devil did you do?" he said sternly.

"I-I didn't do anything!" Confessed Lucy.

Leo glared at her threateningly. He slowly clenched one of his hands while the bright glow of regulus engulfed it. Lucy looked at it, and gulped.

Then she realised.

Isn't his magic Dark Regulus?

"Liar," he whispered.

"Leo, wait!" Said Virgo. Leo glanced at Virgo. She took off the glove of her bad arm and scrunched up a sleeve to show a black circular tattoo.

"Calartemis's been here," she whispered. Leo stayed quiet.

"He's Calartemis?" Asked Lucy quietly. Virgo looked at Lucy,

"What do you mean?" Asked Virgo.

"Just a minute ago, a man with white hair appeared," replied Lucy. Virgo glanced at the tattoo on Lucy's wrists, then onto the tattoos on hers.

"It seems like we're stuck together," said Virgo.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Asked Lucy.

"The chains of Saturn. Those under the spell will be unable to be away for a certain distance. It'll wear off in a couple of days, though," said Virgo.

"Cardea... A god related to wind... Kronos... The God of time..." Muttered Lucy.

"Could it be? God magic?" Whispered Lucy. Aquarius clutched her head.

"What is it?"

"I-It seems like that Calartemis found out more about where Ophiuchus is," whispered Aquarius.

"Curses... Then we have to go help her. Looks like we have to return to the celestial spirit world to warn her," thought Virgo. An aura appeared around Virgo as she strained to return to the celestial spirit world. She concentrated harder, still no luck. Suddenly, she grabbed her wrists as the tattoo glowed with punishment and winced in pain. The tattoo then faded down back to its usual black.

"The spell, remember," said Aquarius.

"Of course. We don't have a couple of days. Guess we'll have to walk there," muttered Virgo.

"Good thing Cardea Transportation can only be used every six days..."

"Too bad neither of us knows the landscape," said Aquarius.

"Landscape..." Muttered Lucy.

"The basic landscape of Fiore hasn't changed much... Even though it has been seven hundred years... I think I could still remember the map of Fiore I sketched for another job last time..."

"I know the landscape!" Blurted out Lucy. Aquarius, Leo and Virgo looked at her.

"You do?" They asked.

"Well, not completely, but I think I can," she said. The spirits looked at each other.

"Does Leo-Kun think they should?" Whispered Aquarius.

"We shouldn't. Humans can't be trusted."

"But she's our only chance. Besides, we're stuck with her."

Leo sighed.

"Fine," he said. They turned around.

"Lead us to Crocus," he said.

"C-Crocus?! But that's so far away! And where in Crocus?! And why?"

"Iris hill," said Leo, ignoring the last part. Lucy breathed out a sigh of relief. After all, Iris hill is the tallest hill in Crocus.

"I can lead you there."

"Then lead us now," ordered Leo.

"Do you have to be so rude?" Asked Lucy. He shot an 'or else' glare at her. Lucy gulped a bit. She looked at the sky. The sun was slightly left from the centre of the sky, meaning that the sun is pointing towards East. Crocus is mostly at the west side, so the opposite direction will have to be West.

"Follow me," said Lucy as she lead the celestial spirits West.

Meanwhile, in an unknown temple, Calartemis sat on a stone throne as he projected an image of Lucy and the celestial spirits.

"Spying Theia," he whispered.

"Well, well, well. Think can you beat me to that, correct? I don't think so," he whispered.

"Feng," he yelled out.

Thick, white fog appeared in front of the god Mage.

Slowly, some of the more opaque fogs formed into a person, first forming into a person shape, as if kneeded into that shape with an invisible hand like clay.

Then the fog materialised into something more solid, becoming more human like until at last, there stood a figure.

"Tragic... How tragic..." Said the figure

"Hm? Is it what, Feng?"

"To think that such young fair lady are leading their way... Being forced to lead them... Tragic... How tragic..." Said the voice again.

"Think you everything is tragic. Step out," he ordered.

The figure stepped out from the shadows.

Feng was a middle aged man with long, stormy hair.

He wore gloomy, stormy grey sensei robes tied with a obi that's a lighter shade.

He peered at Calartemis through hair that failed to hide his face.

"Yes... How tragic... Tragic, tragic, tragic, tragic, tra-"

"Stop that."

Feng stopped.

"I but have a mission for you. Is that why I called you," he said.

"Tragic... What is it?"

Calartemis smiled.

"Stop them," he said as he projected out the celestial spirits and Lucy from his hand.

"As you wish, lord..." Said Feng as he disappeared into fog once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, if it's bad, blame me. Anyway, for those of you who are saying that I did a lot of bad grammar in Calartemis's speech, I can reassure you, that's just the way he speaks. Anyway, God magic:
> 
> Cardea transportation: Cardea was the Roman God of door hinges and was associated with wind.
> 
> Waiting / chains of Saturn: Saturn was the Roman God of time.
> 
> Anyway, I just realised it's Halloween now.
> 
> So I'm just gonna say it now, for the sake of it.
> 
> So to top it off, this is my Halloween gift to you.
> 
> HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


	4. Feng

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy, Aquarius, Leo and Virgo starts their journey. However, they meet a mysterious man under the name of Feng, who is ordered by Calartemis to stop them. However, there's an even more mysterious mystery about Regulus...

"I'm tired... We should actually rest..." Moaned Lucy. She and the celestial spirits had walked for hours by now, and the sun was beginning to set.

"Shut up, you gripe," Leo hissed out of the corner of his mouth. He walked ahead of Lucy and stuck his foot out, tripping her into a large puddle of brown, sticky mud.

"If you want to rest, then rest in that pool of mud," he said. Lucy lifted her head, and was about to complain, expecting Leo to have a wide grin of satisfaction, but she saw not a single flinch.

"Seems like your face is too grotesque to get covered even by mud completely," he said coldly, looking away.

"Those are mildly harsh verbal punishment."

"Aquarius thinks so, too." Virgo and Aquarius helped lift Lucy out of the thick sludge.

"Don't talk back to the leader of the Zodiac," he snapped.

"Are you all right, err..." Started Virgo. Lucy realised she hadn't given them her name yet. She racked her brains for ideas of substitute names.

"Hime," blurted out Lucy.

"Huh?"

"My name is Hime," said Lucy again.

"Hime? As in princess?"

"Err... Yeah."

"Please excuse us, your majesty," said Virgo, suddenly bowing. Lucy and Aquarius dropped a sweat.

"N-no, my name is Hime, I'm not related to royalty in any way," said Lucy.

"Very well," said Virgo as she stood up. Something dawned to Lucy. Even if the past forms of the current celestial spirits were also the eclipse celestial spirits, then how come Virgo acted so politely?

"Hime's clothes are muddy," pointed out Aquarius. Lucy looked down and saw that her clothes, was obviously muddy, and there wasn't a single part which wasn't.

"I'll deal with it," said Virgo. She clicked her fingers.

"H-huh?"

Lucy's muddy clothes were now replaced with warm, soft clothing. She looked down as she saw that she now wore a long sleeved cheongsam, navy blue like a starless night time sky. She also wore a white bodice with an aurora teal heart like pattern on it. Lucy also wore leggings of the same shade of teal reaching just past her knees, and soft, white suede boots with a golden star shape at each of the heel. Lucy's hair was braided into two even French braids that rested on her shoulders with the end tied with ribbons the same shade of teal as the heart pattern and the leggings.

"Celestial spirit clothing, plain ones, though," said Virgo.

"H-huh? Oh, thanks," said Lucy.

"Hime looks pretty in the celestial spirit clothing," said Aquarius.

"Leo-Kun, doesn't he thinks so, too?" Leo glanced at this stranger named Hime, even though he barely even looked at her before.

"You look alright... For a human," he said after looking away.

"What's up with his attitude?" Muttered Lucy.

Suddenly, Lucy felt as if they were being stared.

As thick, white fog surrounded them, Lucy and the celestial spirits looked cautiously around, forming an outer circle by instinct.

"Tragic..." Whispered a wispy and scratchy voice.

"W-what?" Said Lucy.

Suddenly, the fog collected and spun inside the circle, spinning and spinning like an opaque tornado.

Lucy and the other celestial spirits stepped back, looking at the tornado fog.

The tornado fog slowly grew more and more complex.

Tornado fogs sprouted from the sides like branches from a tree sped up.

The tornado fog then grew more and more solid, and more and more complex and more solid, looking more and more human like by the minute.

"W-what's happening?"

"There's only one explanation for this. I'm certain, it's..."

The fog then turned into something that's not quite a fog, but just not quite a human...

"Feng," finished Virgo as the fog transformed into a man with long, stormy gray hair, and oriental clothing.

"Tragic..." He said.

"W-why tragic-"

Virgo silenced her.

"What do you want, Feng?"

The man named Feng looked up.

"You all may only continue on your tragic journey. If you all can defeat me," he said.

Virgo, Aquarius, Leo and Lucy all got into fighting positions.

Feng stuck out a hand to his side.

"Lance... Twister."

Suddenly, strong wind drilled it's way towards Lucy and the celestial spirits

Virgo stood in between Lucy, Leo and Aquarius.

"Spica Block!" A large wall of earth appeared in front of Virgo, using it as a shield against the side wards twister drill.

Feng clenched his fist before letting go.

As if obeying his hand commands, the earthen wall turned to liquid, allowing the twister lance to pierce through Virgo's shoulder.

"I-it causes physical damage like a blade?! And how did the wall-"

"That's Feng's Magic," said Leo.

"Feng's a bender magic user. Bender magic is a type of magic where the user can make anything either a solid, a liquid or a gas and to bend the thing according to will. However, ouch!" Aquarius's words were cut short when air suddenly concentrated around her arm area and sliced open a large wound.

Lucy's eyes widened.

"Aquarius, are you all right?"

Aquarius looked at her.

"O-of course Aquarius is all right. It's just a cut, and Aquarius's just a celestial spirit. However, Feng's specialty is wind."

While Lucy was by Aquarius, Virgo was dodging every one of Feng's attacks.

However, she mis calculated a jump and fell onto the ground.

"Fury of the Winds."

A stocky tornado formed and rushed towards Virgo.

"Spica Block!"

Leaning against the ground, Virgo summoned earth to act like a shield against the wind.

Feng clenched his fist and let go, making Virgo's earthen wall to collapse.

However, Virgo used her earth magic to continuously shape the earthen wall.

The earthen wall slowly began to collapse as Feng's magic strengthened.

Virgo looked at Leo.

"Leo! Use Regulus! Feng can't bend energy!"

Leo looked at her.

He got into his position for casting Regulus.

"O-oh Regulus. Grant me y-your s-strength," he said feebly, no confidence in his words.

Only a tiny spark appeared on his fist.

"Energy..." Thought Lucy.

"That's it!" She said as she grabbed her whip.

"Fleuve d'etoile-"

She paused.

So did the celestial spirits and Feng.

The whip now flowed blue water the equivalent of a fast water fall.

"D-damn! Why can't it stop?!"

"Tragic."

Aquarius paused.

"Oh. I see," she started.

"Huh?"

"The whip. It looks as if water is flowing out. The water's actually ethernano. It must be because there's too much ethernano in the air!" Stated Aquarius.

"What?! But then what about Feng?!"

"Don't worry. Aquarius will deal with it," said Aquarius as she pulled out her golden water gun.

"Bubble Shot!" Orbs of water charged at Feng like a machine gun.

Feng looked at the orbs of water.

He then stuck out his left hand, making the ferocious orbs melt down their shape and just land onto the ground.

"Now's my chance," thought Virgo.

"Spica Charge!" All the Earthen matter around her charged at Feng.

Feng looked up and used his free hand to turn the earthen matter to air.

"Yes! He's cornered!" Said Lucy.

Feng looked around.

Then he disappeared.

"Huh?"

"Eh?"

"What?"

Virgo and Aquarius calmed down their spells.

"Where... Did he go?" Said Lucy quietly.

There was suddenly a yelp.

Lucy looked to her right, where Aquarius was.

She was gone.

"Over here..." Said Feng.

They looked forward.

Feng's hand was the only thing keeping Aquarius off the ground.

"That bastard!"

"So surrender, and I'll let her go," he said.

"Dammit..."

"We need to surrender," said Leo.

"What?!"

"Aquarius is an air spirit. She needs air," said Virgo as Aquarius squirmed from the lack of oxygen.

"So choose. Surrender tragically and I'll let her go, or- Gah!" Feng's words were stopped when Aquarius bit into his bony wrist, resulting him to let her go.

Aquarius fell down onto her knees and panted from the dizziness of lacked oxygen.

"Now's my chance! Spica Charge!" Earthen debris charged from above Feng, forcing Feng to lie down onto the forest ground.

When the debris cleared, Feng was gone.

"Where did he go?!" Said Lucy.

Virgo looked around.

She closed her eyes and concentrated.

Virgo opened her eyes.

She side kicked a tree trunk.

Just before her foot touched the trunk, Feng appeared between the space of Virgo's foot and the tree trunk, resulting in Virgo's foot trapping Feng against the tree trunk by his neck.

Virgo glared at Feng harshly.

Then Feng melted into thick mist before the mist disappeared.

Virgo closed her eyes, concentrating on any of Feng's magical energy.

"He's gone," she said.

Lucy let out a sigh of relief.

Then she looked at Leo.

"How come you just watched?" She protested.

"Well, so what? It's not like a human would care," he answered, annoyed while glancing at the other direction.

"No, but, unlike you, I was at least trying to help!"

"Yes. By apparently making that whip or something flow out a lot of ethernano."

"And all you did was to ignite a spark!"

"At least it was a magical ability!"

Lucy froze.

He?

Claiming to help just by casting that tiny spark 'Regulus'?!

It's not even close to what the Loke from her timeline is capable of!

And all he did was to watch from the sidelines!

The 'leader' of the Zodiac?!

He also suggested to surrender!

In fact, he's more like a-

"Oh. God. You. Big. COWARD!" Yelled Lucy as she punched him out of furious anger.

Leo went back a couple of inches.

"Loke, listen! One of your nakama almost, well, got harmed, and at that time, all you did was to suggest to surrender!"

"Hime-"

"And you didn't even lift a single finger!"

Ignored.

Lucy felt angrier.

He's not even taking this seriously?!

"In fact, what kind of leader are you if you can't even defend your own nakama?!" She screamed.

Leo looked at her, with a strange mix of surprise, being offended,

and...

fear...?

Lucy paused.

Why did he...?

"Wait... I... I... I didn't..."

Leo realised.

Then he looked away.

"Not like you cared."

Lucy's eye twitched.

She took a deep breath.

"Let's camp here for the night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. Maybe this is crappy.
> 
> And I want to apologise how long it took to write this.
> 
> Because you see, despite the fact that I said the story's pre typed, this chapter wasn't.
> 
> So... Yeah. Heh heh heh.
> 
> (F**K YOU WRITER'S BLOCK.)
> 
> So... Hopefully, the wait for the next chapter won't be too long, because I already got most of the story for next chapter thought out.


	5. Quarrel, Explanation, Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, Lucy gets in a quarrel with Leo. Afterwards, Virgo tells Lucy about why Leo is negative about Regulus, and their relationship with Calartemis.

"Phew! Well, the campfire's finally done," said Lucy. By now, it is twilight, and a warm campfire is now crackling and illuminating a warm orange glow in the dim light.

"Honestly, it's much easier when Natsu does it," thought Lucy.

But thinking about Natsu saddened her.

Will she ever going back to the present, or was she destined to be stuck in the past?

They sat down around the campfire, watching the flames dance as if to give their viewers entertainment.

For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of the campfire and a faint trickling of what could be a stream.

"Well... The fire's quite warm," said Lucy, attempting to break the silence.

Leo rolled his eyes.

He looked into the fire blankly.

'In fact, what kind of leader are you if you can't even defend your own nakama?!'

True.

Maybe that shows how weak and cowardly he actually is.

He can't even use Regulus, his own magic, ever since-

"Huh? Loke...?" Said the blonde.

He lifted his head and faced her.

Then he looked away.

"It's Leo, human," he said harshly.

"Geez... What's up with your attitude?"

"My attitude's fine, woman."

If you stop calling me by that name, he thought in his head.

There was a brief silence.

Then Lucy thought of something.

"Say... About today, how come you can't cast-"

"Shut up."

"What?! I'm just asking why-"

"I said, shut. Up."

"But wait, what the heck's wrong with me just asking you why you can't-"

"Seriously, woman, how many times do I have to tell you, would you just shut up?!" He yelled.

Again, almost silence.

He inhaled before he exhaled.

"I'll just get some water from that stream," he said before he walked to the direction of the trickling sound.

"But wait, the chains of Saturn-" started Lucy.

"The stream's not that far," he said before he went past the trees.

"Geez... All that drama because of a simple question?"

"For Leo, it's not a simple question at all," said Aquarius.

Lucy turned around.

"Huh?"

"Well... Leo... He lost Regulus," said Aquarius while looking away, looking ashamed.

"Wait, what do you mean he lost Regulus?!"

Aquarius looked away even more, even more ashamed,

"I'll explain," said Virgo as she looked at her.

"Huh?"

Virgo looked at the fire a little sadly.

She sighed a bit.

"Regulus is his heart."

"Wait, so he literally has a star for a heart?"

"No, no, it's a bit of a metaphor. Well... Us celestial spirits are representatives of constellations. See?" Said Virgo as she pointed towards the sky.

Lucy looked up.

What caught her attention is that there were very few constellations.

"Wait, where did all the constellations go?!"

"What do you mean? There's only fourteen constellations," said Virgo.

"Huh. Weird... Then where are all the silver key constellations?"

"There's our constellation. That one on the right is my constellation-"

"Oh, wait," said Lucy.

"Hm?"

"I know the constellations," said Lucy.

After all, she is a celestial spirit wizard.

"Oh, alright. Anyway, look at the Leo constellation," said Virgo.

Lucy lifted up her head.

"Yeah...?" Said Lucy, the lion like constellation viewed easily.

"Now look at Regulus, or rather, look for Regulus."

Lucy looked at the lion constellation again, straining to see the brightly glowing star.

She looked a various areas of the constellation.

Then she looked at the centre, at where Regulus would be.

There was only a a star so faint, it almost disappeared.

"Huh... Where is that star?"

"See the dim one in the centre?"

"But there's no way that could be Regulus-"

"That is Regulus."

Lucy froze.

Virgo sighed.

"Regulus is the heart of the lion. Without a heart, there would be no Regulus," she said quietly.

Lucy looked at Virgo, puzzled.

"Wait. So..."

"Please," started Virgo.

"Hm?"

Virgo took a deep breath.

"Leo is a fire spirit. At first glance, fire seems to be powerful and confident. However, in reality, unlike the other elements, fire's fragile and is just too easy to extinguish. Leo had gone through a lot for us already."

"Like..."

Virgo just then seemed like she tried to shrink herself.

"He's been under contract with Calartemis far longer than us."

"Hm?"

"When Calartemis forced him to reveal our owner's locations-"

"Wait a second, why does Calartemis want to know your locations, even though he's a god magic user?"

"Well... We... Don't know. Maybe it's because he just loves to see things wither in pain, and we're immortal."

Lucy froze.

He only made contracts with the celestial spirits...

For his own, personal entertainment?

"But... But... But that's not right! Why do you all have to suffer?"

She looked away more.

"Well... It's probably fate," she said.

Lucy froze.

"No! Wait, it can't be fate! It's just simply bad luck!" She protested.

Virgo looked away even more.

"Sometimes I wonder..."

"Huh?"

"Can humans still be trusted?" She said quietly.

"O-of course humans can be trusted- not all of them are bad-" Lucy paused completely when Virgo scrunched up the sleeve of her bad arm.

The forearm was attached to the elbow only by stitches with thick string.

"Even after this? Even after being tortured in every single way possible? Even after several lies? I don't think so," she said as she layed down and yawned.

"Wait!" Said Lucy.

"Hm? Hime, what is it?"

"Oh, it's just that I thought celestial spirits-"

"There's a lot of ethernano in the air. We'll be alright," she said as she drifted into sleep.

"Aquarius think so, too," said Aquarius as she did the same thing.

For a second, there was only the crackling of the fire and the trickling of the stream nearby.

Stream.

Oh, right.

Leo.

How come he's not back yet?

Lucy stood up and walked passed the trees in the direction Leo had gone.

After nearly tripping on some of the thick tree roots, she finally saw the stream, and Leo in front of it.

"Oh Regulus. Grant me your strength," said Leo as he concentrated.

He concentrated harder and harder, harder and harder.

Lucy paused.

He's... Actually trying to cast Regulus?

In the end, only a flicker showed up.

He looked at his hands in frustration.

He got to his pose again.

"Oh Regulus, grant me your strength!" He yelled.

Leo concentrated and concentrated.

He concentrated so much, beads of sweat was beginning to form.

In the end, only a slightly brighter flicker showed up along with a tiny pop. 

He let out a frustrated grunt.

Again, the pose.

"Oh Regulus, grant me your fu-"

He paused when somebody's hand was placed onto his shoulder.

He glanced sideways to where the pressure was felt.

"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" He asked to the blonde woman, annoyed while glancing back.

"W-well, I just want to tell you.... About earlier today..."

"That I was weak? That I was a coward? That I didn't even try?"

"No! It's just..."

"Just what?"

"I'm... I'm... Oh, God, I don't know why I'm saying this."

"Say what? Just tell me."

"I'm sorry. Well, about today, when I called you a coward."

He looked at her.

"Tsk! Like you care," he said while looking away.

"Well... Also... About just then..."

"Fine."

"Huh?"

"The reason I can't cast Regulus is because I lost at a pointless fight. Happy?"

"Pointless...? Virgo told me... You've already suffered a lot..."

He paused.

"All for nothing, either."

"But... If it was for your nakama, then it wouldn't be pointless," said Lucy.

He sighed as he lied down.

Lucy did the same.

"If only it's true..." He whispered, barely enough for even himself to hear.

"But let's put the past behind us, and- hey, are you even listening?!" Said Lucy as Leo stared into the night time sky.

Then he looked away from Lucy.

"Seriously, just stop ignoring me!"

Ignored.

Lucy inhaled and exhaled.

"But about the Regulus thing... Well... I'm sorry. Really sorry."

Leo turned around and faced her,

"Well... I... I didn't realise it was a sensitive subject for you. So I'm sorry for asking you about the Regulus subject," she finished. 

Leo looked at her even more.

"U-umm..." Said Lucy.

Then Leo realised.

"Tsk! Fine. So you apologised," he said as he turned his head around the other way.

"Let's go back," said Lucy as she stood up.

"Fine," said Leo as he did the same.

They walked back to the original campsite, where the campfire still illuminated the area.

Lucy layed down near the fire.

"So warm..." She thought as she fell asleep.

Leo rolled his eyes.

He sat down next to a tree.

Leaning against a tree trunk, Leo yawned.

After all, even though it can't affect celestial spirits, he hadn't slept ever since that peculiar dream.

Closing his eyes, he, too, finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Well, I've finally finished this chapter.
> 
> Sorry, everyone. Darn writer's block again.
> 
> I know. The explanation was a bit rushed.
> 
> So... Yeah. Chapter.
> 
> Next chapter will just be a filler, though.
> 
> Anyway, I'm just worried that the manga will basically catch up to the point where there will be a plot twist about Lucy or something, so, basically, I will have to write more chapters in a shorter amount of time.
> 
> So don't you dare go faster, clock.


	6. awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It started when Lucy wanted to practise using her fleuve d'etoile. Then it became slightly awkward. (filler.)

Lucy woke up to the sounds of birds with bell like voices.

It was morning.

The campfire has now long reduced to embers, and the celestial spirits were still sleeping soundly.

"Hm. Maybe I could try do some practising with my fleuve d'etoile while I wait for them to wake up," thought Lucy.

She headed to the river, away from the trees and such.

Finally, she saw the river.

She grabbed out her whip and activated it.

Again, it flowed out too much ethernano.

"But the water of my fleuve d'etoile is ethernano. Maybe if I could control the flow of the ethernano, then maybe I could control it better," thought Lucy.

She concentrated hard, concentrating the ethernano to get in order.

In the end, after a lot of effort, she only directed where the ethernano flowed, so rather than heading multiple directions, it only flowed in one direction.

"S-seriously?!" Said Lucy aloud.

She concentrated harder, and harder, only for the direction of the flow only to get narrower.

"God..." Panted Lucy as she sat onto the ground.

"Loke must've went through this to try and cast Regulus. I didn't think it would've been this frustrating or tiring, and to think this is only my second try, too," she thought.

"Dammit, I have to try harder!" She said as she concentrated even more, straining and straining to control the magic flow.

Then there was a splash.

She looked forward, and saw salmon in the river.

Lucy's stomach growled.

Then a thought appeared.

Maybe she could try catch some of the salmon and then cook it after lighting the fire.

Taking off her suede boots, she waded into the river, which thankfully wasn't that deep.

As the cool river current swept past her legs, she also felt the fish swimming against it.

Then a salmon jumped out.

"There's one!" Said Lucy as she reached out to grab it, but slipped out of her hands.

Lucy's face got sprayed with water as the salmon jumped back into the river.

She looked out for another salmon.

Then another larger one jumped out.

"Got you this time!" She said as she gripped onto the salmon harder.

But the salmon was pretty stubborn not to get caught, so it wriggled with great force, taking down Lucy with it.

"Oh, God!" She yelled as she fell face down into the river.

 

"Oh, God!" Then a loud splash.

Leo woke up unpleasantly from the sound.

Being a lion spirit, his sense of hearing is more sensitive than the other celestial spirits.

He looked forward, where the others were sleeping.

Virgo and Aquarius are still sleeping.

And that person named Hime's missing.

Right. He could just sit back-

Hime's missing!

He stood up.

He faced the direction of where the scream was heard.

She must've fell into the river.

He walked towards the river at a fast pace.

Who knows how deep that river was?

And she is their guide!

She's the only way they could go to Iris hill.

Finally, he reached the banks of the river.

Just in time, Lucy sat up, the water just going up to her waist.

"That is one powerful fish..." Muttered Lucy before she saw Leo.

There was an awkward silence.

"Wait. Why are you in the water?" Asked Leo finally.

Another silence.

"Umm... Well... How to I put this? Well... I thought I could practice using my whip, but then I saw some salmon in the river, And... I wanted to have some breakfast, so..."

"That's it?"

"Yeah..."

Another silence.

"So when are you getting up?"

"Huh? Oh, right- Oof!" Said Lucy as she attempted to stand up, only to fall back from the slippery algae coating the rocks at the bottom.

Leo sighed.

"Seriously, human. You're helping us get to Iris hill, yet we need to help you more that you're helping us, and now you're actually slipping from the algae coating the rocks?"

"Hey! I have a name, and it's Lu-Hime!" Said Lucy, switching back to her other name at the last second.

Thankfully, he somehow didn't notice.

"Fine, Hime," he said as he rolled his eyes.

Lucy tried to stand up again, but slipped again.

"Fine. I'll help you get up," said Leo as he stepped into the river and waded towards Lucy.

He grabbed Lucy's hand to pull her up, but the pink fairy tail tattoo caught his attention.

He slowly inspected it.

"Say... That's an interesting marking..."

"Weird... Looks familiar... But why?"

"U-umm, yeah, it's... It's a birthmark!" Said Lucy, unable to come up with another excuse.

"A birthmark...? If you say so, then," he said as he pulled Lucy up.

Halfway through, another salmon jumped out of the river, startling Lucy and making her almost slide back, if it wasn't for Leo to scoop her back up... Bridal style.

They both blushed.

There was a bit of a silence.

"This is awkward," they both said in unison, before there was more silence.

Then Leo looked forward to the river bank.

"It's gotten even more awkward," he said.

"Hm?" Lucy said as she looked towards the river bank.

On the other side of the river stood Virgo and Aquarius, both looking slightly surprised but that's it.

Just as Lucy was going to hop off from Leo's arm, Leo tried to quickly put Lucy down, feet first, resulting them to both fall face down into the river.

Leo sat up first.

Lucy then sat up, too.

"Wait. Leo, why are you and Hime in the river?" Asked Virgo.

"And why... Was Leo holding Hime..."

"It was unintentional," said Leo quickly.

He stood up.

"We should really continue now to Iris hill. Time's wasting, and it's not going to slow down if we're here," he said.

"Wait, why are we going to Iris hill again-" Started Lucy as she stood up.

"You don't need to know," said Leo as they stepped out of the river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told ya it's a filler.
> 
> This time, it was because I was too lazy.
> 
> I'm so sorry.
> 
> Gaming apps are too addictive.
> 
> If it's dumb, I know.


	7. Venom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Lucy and the celestial spirits enter a new territory, Calartemis this time sent a mysterious man with venomous powers after them.

Calartemis sat down as he watched Lucy and the celestial spirits from a hologram.

"Spying Theia," he said quietly as he closed his palm, deactivating the spell.

"Wish I they would continue to that snake bearer. Need I more immortality," he said quietly.

The suddenly, fog materialised out of nowhere, and Feng appeared before him.

"Forgive me, lord. I-I did not win this tragic fight, I-"

The bender mage paused as the albino glared at him with his nightmare eyes.

There was a moment of silence.

"You need to not worry. Did you exactly what I planned."

Feng looked at him, slightly confused.

"God magic does tragically make people insane."

"If not you use it correctly."

Suddenly, dangling in front of the god mage from the ceiling was a single black spider.

Calartemis inspected it, looking around the spider.

"A black widow," he said as the spider slowly spun around, revealing the scarlet hourglass shape on it's stomach.

However, unlike other black widows, the scarlet hourglass glowed like lava in the night.

He looked at the ceiling.

"Arachnen. Knew I you're there," he said.

Hanging from a wooden rafter was a man who looked like a native of South America.

Snakes secured his position by twisting their bodies around his ankles and the rafter.

He held two black, shiny escrima sticks, slightly curved and pointed at the end while crossing his arms into an X.

"Down come now."

Spiders which are now visible surrounded the snakes, and carried the man named Arachnen down, across the ceiling, and down the wall, while he himself didn't move a single inch.

Finally, the snakes and spiders carried him across the floor, in front of Calartemis.

"Well, what isss it, Alpha?" He said in the voice of a rattlesnake's rattle: noticeable yet somehow dangerous.

"Stop calling me Alpha. Ridiculous it's."

"That'sss your only order? Alright, then, Lord," said Arachnen as he rotated his head around slightly, like as if to see things at another angle.

"No, not that's the order. However, why it is you're here?"

"Ah, Blaze told me," he said as the black widow in front of Calartemis spun more silk to bring it down.

It landed onto Calartemis's lap, before quickly scurrying across down his boot, across the stone floor, and finally into Arachnen's untameable hair.

"Should've I known. Carry you that spider everywhere," he muttered.

For a moment, the black widow got out of his hair and onto his shoulder, before communicating to Arachnen through squeaks and clicks.

Arachnen faced the spider on his shoulder and nodded at every single click and squeak.

He then faced Calartemis.

"Alpha… I need to tell you… What do you mean… By more immortality? Doesssn't your magic make you immortal?"

"And can how I tell you, without certain being you'll only keep it to yourself?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know."

"Don't ask then."

The spider on Arachnen's shoulder squeaked and clicked to him again.

"Alssso, Feng sssaid sssomething about losssing at a fight?"

"Tragically."

"Correct," said Calartemis.

Then he looked at Arachnen.

"Know you what? Have I an order for you," he said.

"Hm? What isss it, then?"

Calartemis projected an image.

"Stop them now," he said as he clicked his fingers, making Arachnen disappear.

_____

"Seriously, how big is this forest?" Lucy wondered out loud.

For a while, Lucy and the celestial spirits had walked west, heading towards Iris hill.

"Honestly, Aquarius doesn't know either," said Aquarius.

"And human, you actually claim that you know how to get to Iris hill. How would you know where Iris hill is for certain without a map, or without being here before? If you know how, then you would've actually know how big this forest is, and also, it seems a bit ridiculous you could memorise where Iris hill actually is."

"Hey, Iris hill is Cro-" Said Lucy as she paused when she looked forward.

Granite marked the end of the forest, cutting the area cleanly off from the grass and fallen leaves.

Beyond that, it was a cliff.

Mist covered everything beyond the edge of the cliff, with only silhouettes hinting what's in the mist.

There were silhouettes of giant slabs of granite forming platforms levitating what's beyond them, and along with the silhouettes of trees with assorted leaves somehow growing out of the granite.

"Well… At least we know how big the forest is now."

"… Are you sure it's this way?"

"Well… It is west this way… And it's morning, so…" said Lucy as she looked at the sun, hiding behind the thick mist.

It was morning, so the sun is facing east, the opposite direction they're facing.

"Yes, I'm sure this is the right way," said Lucy.

"Are those stable though?"

"I'll see if those platforms are stable," said Leo as he walked onto one of them, walking over the gap between the cliff and the platform.

"Careful, though," said Lucy.

As Leo stepped onto the granite platform, the platform sank down only a bit, but otherwise stayed floating.

Slowly, he walked into the centre.

Still floating.

He jumped a bit.

As soon as the granite platform sunk down a bit, it immediately floated back up.

"It's stable," he said.

"Alright then…" they said.

"I'm going to go now," said Lucy as she slowly stepped onto a platform.

It sank a bit to her direction when she stepped onto it, but it still stayed levitating nonetheless.

Aquarius and Virgo followed.

With Aquarius, Lucy and Virgo standing at one end of the platform, the platform started to tilt.

Lucy moved towards the centre of the large platform, and the platform retained to being horizontal.

"Looks like we have to move quickly for the platforms to not tilt too much," said Lucy.

Leo stepped onto the platform in front of him.

"It's a good thing there's not too much space between the platforms," said Leo.

Pretty soon, they crossed two to three platforms

But on the fourth platform, Leo paused.

Faint taps and scratchy rubs against the granite can be heard.

"Leo-ku- Leo, what is it?" Asked Aquarius.

"Just be quiet. All of you. I think I can hear something," he replied.

He looked around, looking for silhouettes through the thick mist.

He looked to the left.

Like the other gigantic slabs of levitating granite, this slab of granite has a leafless tree.

But something doesn't seem right about this particular tree.

Judging the silhouette, the tree seemed to be wrapped in something long but slim and cylindrical, and there seems to be many spots along with it, and a thin coverage of something that's there yet not quite there either.

Through the thick mist, it's still unclear what it is that's covering the tree.

"Hey. Leo, why are you looking-"

"Wait," he said.

Suddenly, a spider dropped down slowly from a branch using silk.

Leo looked at it.

Even through the thick mist… Something glowed on the spider…

A red hourglass!

"Arachnen. Show yourself!"

"Yesss. It isss me…" said a voice like a rattlesnake's rattle.

They looked up at the tree.

Resting on the tree is the shape of a man.

"I knew it was you. You carry that arachnid everywhere," said Leo.

"Arachnid? Which one? You don't mean the ssscorpion friend of yoursss, correct?"

"Cut the crap, Arachnen. Scorpio is a celestial spirit, and he's under contract with him."

"Ah, yesss, under contract with Alpha, like all of you animalsss," the man named Arachnen sneered.

Lucy paused.

The celestial spirits looked away, slightly offended.

"You… You call them animals?!" Yelled Lucy.

"That'sss what they are, after all. Emotionless, ussselesss, sssavage…"

Lucy was speechless.

"However, I'm not here to quarrel with all of you. In fact, I'm here to ssstop you!" Yelled Arachnen as he jumped out of the tree.

He pulled out black fang like escrima sticks, and flipped them around, blunt end facing them.

"Spica Charge!" Earthen debris charged against Arachnen, but Arachnen dodged them.

Quick as a flash, Arachnen hitted Virgo's head with the escrima sticks.

Virgo dropped to her knees before going completely unconscious from the impact.

"Virgo!" They said.

"And Virgo's an earth spirit, too. Earth spirits are supposed to be most durable," said Leo.

"Wait… that means… Just a knock of his escrima sticks can knock you down?!"

"Exactly. And that's not even his special ability."

"Wait… All I need to do is to grab them… And then he'll be powerless!" thought Lucy.

"Come on, fleuve d'etoiles, come… On!" said Lucy as she activated her whip, heaving from the weight of the ethernano pouring out.

However, Arachnen rushed towards Aquarius and flipped his escrima sticks around, sharp end facing her.

"Cobalt Freeze!" The sharp, hooked ends of the escrima sticks pierced Aquarius's skin.

"Aquarius!"

"Cobalt Freeze! That means…"

"A-Aquarius's paralysed…" said Aquarius as she struggled to move her limbs, but were fixed in one position.

"Arachnen's specialty is venom… That's the name of his magic. Venom!" said Leo.

"Right, that's it! You can't just do that to Aquarius!" Yelled Lucy as she concentrated more, making the fleuve d'etoile materialise into something more thin, longer and wilder than it originally was.

"It worked!" said Lucy as she looked at her whip.

Then she looked at Arachnen.

"But first, those escrima sticks!" Yelled Lucy as she used her whip to whip the escrima sticks out of his hands.

"Yes! Without your escrima sticks, you're powerless now, so you better undo your spell on Aquarius and leave now!" said Lucy.

Arachnen paused.

He stuck out his hands.

The escrima sticks reappeared in his hands.

"W-what?!"

"Remember they'll regenerate next time," said Arachnen.

Virgo woke up, and looked at Lucy.

"Latrodectusss!" Yelled Arachnen as he rushed towards Lucy, sharp end facing her…

Then Virgo.

The sharp end of the escrima sticks pierced through Virgo's bad arm.

They all looked at her in disbelief.

Lucy looked at Virgo collapsing onto the ground, wincing in pain from the wound.

Leo and Aquarius stood by, feeling guilty for not doing anything.

"Oh well," said Arachnen.

He placed two fingers onto his forehead.

"Lord, I am finissshed with my mission. Bring me back now," Arachnen telepathically though.

"Connecting Hermes. Then alright," Calartemis telepathically thought back as Arachnen disappeared.

"Right, Virgo!" Yelled Lucy as she knelt beside Virgo.

"I-it's alright… I'm a celestial… spirit… So this pain… is nothing…" said Virgo as she winced in pain.

"No, it's not alright! You're clearly in pain!" said Lucy.

"Of… Course it is…" said Virgo weakly as Lucy turned around Virgo's bad arm, seeing the wound filled with black venom.

Without thinking, Lucy bit into the wound and sucked out the black, bitter venom.

The celestial spirits looked at her in disbelief.

Lucy turned her head around, and spat out the venom at the side, before going back to the wound and sucking out more venom until all of it was gone.

The celestial spirit looked at her in disbelief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I am DONE with this chapter.
> 
> I'm sorry if some parts seems a bit strange, but one thing for certain:
> 
> Sucking out venom out of a snake bite is NOT RECOMMENDED!
> 
> In fact, it may do more harm than good.
> 
> I just thought I could write it in here, because… I can't really think of anything else.
> 
> So please don't kill me.
> 
> Anyway, the spells:
> 
> Cobalt Freeze: It references the cobalt blue tarantula native to Thailand and Myanmar. The tarantula's bite can paralyse people, usually up to two minutes.
> 
> Latrodectus: Referencing the genus of spiders of the same name, or otherwise known as black widow spiders. Though the bite of the black widow spiders is rarely fatal, symptoms include pain, sweating and vomiting.
> 
> Connecting Hermes: Hermes is the Ancient Greek messenger of the gods.
> 
> I'm sorry for what could be a crappy chapter.


	8. Sent back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the present, Natsu confronted the mage about Lucy. However, they ended up going back in time. Meanwhile, a woman with orange hair and eyes named Ko appears... but wasn't her eyes brown a moment ago?

Team Natsu stared in disbelief at the empty space where Lucy was.

It was like as if nothing happened.

Lucy.

Gone.

Who knows if she will ever come back again.

Wendy and Happy started to cry.

Charlès just stared at the empty spot.

Anger started to boil inside Erza, Gray and Natsu.

Especially Natsu.

No, anger doesn't seem right.

Fury is more like it.

Fury that the mage would harm their nakama,

Fury that the mage would just do it like if she just do not care.

And just… plain fury.

The barrier of control just barely restrained the fury inside of Natsu.

"Tell me… Where is she?" growled Natsu as he slowly walked towards the mage.

"I do not know," she said bluntly.

The barrier broke.

"LIAR! JUST TELL ME, WHERE IS LUCY!" He yelled as fire swirled around his fists and veins popped out of his forehead.

The mage took a step back.

"Just tell me NOW, DAMMIT!" Yelled Natsu again, this time flames completely cloaking him.

The mage took another step back.

Then turned around and ran.

"Running away? I don't think so!" Yelled Natsu as he chased the mage.

"Natsu, wait!" Yelled Erza as they followed Natsu.

The golden outline of the eclipse gate appeared on the ground before it opened.

The mage jumped into it head first, but not before Natsu held her by the ankle, taking Natsu down with her into the port hole.

"Natsu! Yelled Gray as he jumped in and grabbed Natsu's left ankle.

"Gray!" Yelled Erza as she also jumped in and grabbed Gray by his forearm.

"Erza!' Yelled Wendy as she also jumped in and grabbed the boot of her armour.

"Wendy, wait!" Yelled the exceeds as they jumped in, grabbing Wendy by her ankle, with Charlès grabbing Happy's tail.

They tumbled down into the port hole at a high speed, where it seemed more like they're going horizontally than vertically as gold, blinding light surrounded them.

Suddenly, Natsu's grip on the mage's ankle started to slip.

Natsu used his other hand to grip the ankle instead.

However, the high speed and the weight of team Natsu combined resulted in Natsu letting go of the mage's ankle, resulting in the mage going forward more as team Natsu somehow tumbled backwards…

\---

Virgo looked at Lucy.

"You… You… But… why…?" Virgo asked, confused.

"We're friends… Right? I just can't stand seeing a friend hurt," said Lucy.

Lucy looked at the wound again.

"Well… It looks alright now… so it might not be a problem anymore," said Lucy.

"It'll probably heal on it's own…" Started Virgo.

Then she saw the black tattoo circling around her wrists.

It got noticeably thinner, from what originally was around two inches is now around less than half an inch.

"And it looks like since the chains of Saturn is beginning to get thinner, too, so I could go back to the celestial spirit world to heal faster soon," said Virgo.

Aquarius moved a bit.

"It also seems that Aquarius could move again," said Aquarius.

Virgo stood up.

"V-Virgo, are you sure-"

"The wound doesn't really hurt now, so it's alright," replied Virgo.

"Hm. Alright, so let's go then," said Leo as they started to walk west.

\---

"Ha! Latrodectusss can't be erasssed jussst like that!" Sneered Arachnen as he and Calartemis looked at the image.

"Wonder I what they're saying, but just now, the blonde woman sucked out the venom," muttered Calartemis.

Calartemis clenched his palm into a fist, resulting in the image to disappear.

"Is that true. Magic your is designed to work not just like regular poison-"

"Venom."

"Venom, because the ethernano in the venom brings down the particles of the venom deeper into the wound. Correct?"

"Yesss, that'sss true."

"The so fuchsia haired one will be affected later?"

"Yesss- wait. Earlier, I thought I sssaw a tattoo around their wrissstsss? What are thossse?"

"The chains of Saturn."

"Ah… Yesss. Now that I think about it… The tattoosss are ssslowly… Well… Ssshrinking…"

"What?"

"They've ssshrunk to a teeny, tiny, width of a ssspider-"

Calartemis stood up.

A black magic circle with the symbol of Saturn appeared in under him as he stood and concentrated.

Black fog appeared and swirled around him in a clockwise direction, also tracing the magic circle, picking up more speed, until Calartemis violently coughed and fell back onto the stone throne wile the black fog disappeared.

He looked at his palm.

A couple of wrinkled snaked snaked across his palm, before fading, only leaving very faint wrinkles.

"Well, well, well, what isss thisss?"

"Of none your business," snapped back Calartemis.

"Oh, really? Jussst-" Arachnen froze as a hand waved slowly from left to right from behind.

Arachnen then snapped back to reality.

"Yes, my lord?" Said a woman with amber hair who appeared beside him.

"Ko?" Asked Calartemis as the woman named Ko stepped out in between Calartemis and Arachnen.

"Wait-" started Arachnen, but Ko waved her hand in front of him again.

He froze before shaking his head.

"Ah, I see. I'm dismissed then," said Arachnen.

"Ah. Then right," said Calartemis as he clicked his fingers, resulting in Arachnen to disappear.

"Ko, so. It's one of your memory tricks again. Correct?"

"It is, my lord. I know how fragile your secret is," she said, brown eyes looking at him.

"Yes. Too it's bad. Somehow, I'm starting to age every time I use my magic," he replied.

"Better wait until your magic power is fully regenerated, then," she said.

"Good it's to have someone so loyal to me, like a beagle to it's owner," said Calartemis.

Ko thought for a moment.

"If I'm trusted, then can you tell me why you want all of us, your faithful servants, to distract them?"

"Play just along with it, it'll make them want to go there faster," said the albino.

"Alright then… Then should I go and distract them, too?"

"Can't I see why not. It though might waste some time, it's good to make them think they need to keep going," he said as he started to click his fingers.

"Wait! You're only wasting more magical energy. I'll go there myself," she said as she opened a porthole.

She started to climb into it.

"Did when you learn to do that?" Asked Calartemis.

Ko glanced at him with orange eyes..

"Memories are not what it seems," she said as she went through the porthole.

\---

"Careful, now," said Lucy as she guided Aquarius to a granite platform with a large gap in between.

Aquarius stepped across one feet, before placing he other feet onto the platform.

Lucy looked west.

"Wonder how much longer left until Iris Hill," muttered Lucy.

"Wait… I thought you know how to get to Iris Hill," said Leo.

"I-I do! I looked at a map, and saw Iris Hill on it," said Lucy.

"Hm. Very well then…" Muttered Leo as they walked toward past the platforms, stepping over the gaps while looking forward.

They continued to do so, until suddenly, all of a sudden, they were standing still.

"Wait… I could've sworn a just second ago we were walking… Something weird's going on… Especially in terms of memory," Muttered Lucy.

"let's just walk forward," said Virgo as they walked forward again.

"Geez… I wonder how longer the platforms are going on for- Oof!" started Lucy as she collided face first into a solid object.

She stepped back a couple of steps and looked in front of her.

It was a mountain made of the same granite plates, only that they were stacked together into a cone shape.

At this point, the fog was beginning to disappear.

"Now where did that come from?" said Lucy out loud.

Virgo clutched her head.

Lucy looked to Virgo.

"H-hey… Virgo… Are you all right…?"

"Yes… I'm fine," she replied.

"Alright then," said Lucy.

She stepped one foot onto one of the stacked platforms, but it immediately disappeared.

Instead, there was the same stone platforms with no end visible.

"Wait, where did the mountain go?"

"It was a fake," said a voice in front of her.

They looked forward.

Concealed within the mist, they could see a woman with orange hair and brown eyes.

"Ko…"

"Wait. Ko? So you're another one of Calartemis's minions, right?"

"I prefer the word 'helper'," she replied.

Aquarius stepped forward a bit, but Lucy stock out her arm, signalling her to pause.

"I can't let one of you hurt again like on the last fight," said Lucy, thinking about Arachnen and Virgo.

"So I'll just have to deal with her myself!" said Lucy as she rushed forward.

"Fleuve d'etoile!" Water with the force of a raging river came out of the whip, and Lucy used it to bring Ko off her feet.

"Well… That was rather easy," said Lucy as she retracted the whip.

She walked over to Ko.

"You… Win…" said Ko as she looked at her with orange eyes…

Wait…

Wasn't her eyes brown…?

Without warning, Ko was gone.

"Wait… Where did she go?"

Leo paused for a moment.

"… What was the colour of her eyes?" asked Leo.

"Wait, why do you want to know that?"

"Just tell me, was it orange?"

"… Yes."

Leo paused.

"That… Means…"

He paused with the realisation.

"That was a false memory!"

"Huh…?" Lucy said as she looked at him.

There was a silhouette in the air behind her.

"Hey, behind you!" He yelled.

Lucy looked forward, to see Ko rushing to kick her from the air…

When suddenly…

"Fire dragon's…"

There was a light and a silhouette rushing towards Ko."

"What…? But it can't be!"

"Iron Fist!"

"Natsu!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOO! Finally, I FINISHED it!
> 
> (I'm really sorry I didn't finish this chapter earlier. Basically… I was away in Sydney for a week.
> 
> And then after we got back… Writer's block.
> 
> How convenient.)
> 
> I hope this chapter wasn't too bad or confusing, which reminds me…
> 
> Ladies and Gentle mans… Get out your notebooks and write down the clues, because at this point, it gets so confusing you have to read past chapters to find out what the heck is happening!


	9. Back in Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Natsu and the rest of the gang are back in the past! But confusion develops when they all see the celestial spirits, or the eclipsed celestial spirits...

"Natsu!" Lucy yelled as Natsu knocked Ko off her course.

After he did, Natsu looked towards Lucy's direction.

"Lucy!" He said, smiling and looking relieved.

Lucy paused for a moment.

"Wait... If you're here then that means..."

"Aye sir!"

"Yes, we're here now."

"Lu- Chan!"

"Are you all right, Lucy?"

"Lucy, I didn't know you could requip as well."

"Natsu... Erza... Gray... Everyone..." Said Lucy, surprised.

Natsu walked forward to Lucy.

"Lucy, is everything-" he paused when he looked down to see he was on a platform.

"Oh, crap! Urgh... I feel sick..." Said Natsu as he covered his mouth and dropped onto his knees.

They all dropped a sweat.

"Err... Natsu, it's not even moving."

"Natsu, Now's not the appropriate time. At all," scolded Erza.

As Erza was scolding Natsu, Ko stood up and looked at them, rubbing at the purple bruise which has just formed on her cheek.

"How did they get here?" She thought.

Slowly, she backed away.

But not before Gray saw her.

"Hey! You there!" He yelled at her.

She froze.

He walked to her, and grasped her by the collar of her cloak.

"Tell me, why were you trying to hurt Lucy just then?" He said.

"I... I..." She started as she blinked.

"Tell-" Gray paused.

Her eyes are now an amber orange.

She disappeared.

"Where did she go...?" He muttered before walking back.

"Natsu, hang on," said Wendy as she kneeled down in front of Natsu and cast troia.

Immediately, Natsu's stomach doesn't feel as bad.

"Thanks Wendy," said Natsu as he faced her.

He looked at Lucy.

"As I was saying, Lucy, is everything alright?" Asked Natsu.

"Well, yes, but you and the others are sent back in time as well?"

"Well, yeah, as soon as that Mage sent you back in time, we sort of followed-" Natsu paused when he smelt something.

He looked into the direction where the scent came from.

There was three faint silhouettes beyond the mist, and it was slightly hard to tell who they are...

But it can't do much to mask scent.

"This smell..." He said, sniffing the air.

"Huh?" Natsu, what is it?"

"Hang on, I've got somethin'," said Natsu as he sniffed the air again.

Three different smells.

Loke. Aquarius. Virgo.

"Loke! You're here too?"

Leo was taken back.

Only that girl has called him by that name.

Natsu walked forward.

He sniffed again.

"Yep, it's definitely them," he said.

"hey, Loke! Aquarius! Virgo! We're over here!"

The celestial spirits were even more taken back.

Why is that person is talking to them like they know each other?

Natsu paused.

As he got closer, the body shapes were clearly too different to the celestial spirit's.

"Wait, Natsu! What's over there? We can't see!" Said Erza.

"Hang on, I'll fix up the mist," said Wendy as she gently blew.

The mist moved aside.

They all looked at the celestial spirits, or in this case, the eclipsed celestial spirits, shocked, apart from Lucy.

"The... Hell... Loke!" Yelled Natsu as he walked forward at a fast pace and punched the lion spirit in the jaw hard.

"Leo!" Said Aquarius and Virgo.

"If you're doing that rebellion bullshit again, then I won't be amused!" He yelled.

Leo looked at him, confused.

"Rebellion...?" He asked.

Natsu looked at him, stunned by his reply.

"Oh, come on, Loke! There's no way you're forgetting all this again!"

"First of all, who are you?"

"Seriously, do you- wait, what?"

"Natsu, wait!" Said Lucy.

Natsu turned around to face Lucy.

She took a deep breath.

"The eclipse celestial spirits are actually the celestial spirits in the past."

"What?!"

That was a surprise.

"We are all in the year X91."

"X91? Then that means..." Started Gray.

"We're seven hundred years in the past?!" Yelled the exceeds.

Natsu was stunned.

It's true that the eclipse gate can bring people can bring people back in time, but... Seven hundred years?! Even Igneel wasn't born yet!

"Wait," said Erza,

They paused.

"Something doesn't seem right. We all got sent back seven hundred years ago due to a spell that Mage used, eclipse gate. But the eclipse gate takes a lot of magic power to even activate."

"You're right. Even if that Mage has a lot of magic power, how is it that she has enough to mimic the eclipse gate?"

"And also, we're sent back seven hundred years in the past. If you think about it, that's impossible."

During the conversation, Natsu thought of something.

"Wait. And also, if we're seven hundred years in the past, why are the eclipse celestial spirits with you?"

"Because that is our only way to Iris Hill," said Leo, who walked forward.

"True," said Virgo, who also walked forward.

"Leo is right," said Aquarius.

"Huh?"

"Wait, why the heck do you need to get there?"

"We'll explain later."

"But first, you," said Leo sternly as he looked at Lucy.

"Explain what you meant, what they meant, by the fact you're all from seven hundred years in the future. And also, explain what is going on right now," he said seriously.

Lucy thought for a moment.

She inhaled.

It's now or never.

"We-"

Lucy was interrupted when seemingly out of nowhere, black smoke, no, smoke smells, black fog materialised and engulfed them all into the darkness.

Natsu looked around.

"Ugh... What's up with this smog?" Wondered Natsu out loud.

He looked around.

None of his friends can be seen, only pitch black.

He ignited his fist with fire, but it only did so much to provide any sort of light in the dark, inky blackness.

"Hey! Lucy! Happy! Everyone, can you hear me?" He yelled.

Suddenly, there was a voice like silk, but with a hint of insanity.

"Well, well well..."

Natsu turned towards the direction of the voice.

As the black fog started to clear, a silhouette appeared.

"Is this interesting..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god.
> 
> Everyone, I'm so sorry.
> 
> I guess writer's block just got too complicated.
> 
> I'm just... So incredibly sorry this took a month to complete.
> 
> To everyone who waited this long for another chapter, I'm so incredibly sorry.
> 
> But another reason is because I recently got into another anime, and I got into that anime so much, I completely forgot about Truth Of the Past.
> 
> So sorry to everyone who waited this long.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
> 对不起。
> 
> Désolé
> 
> Hopefully, the next chapter might not take as long to wait.


	10. Transported

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calartemis suddenly appears, and then transports team Natsu and the celestial spirits away! Meanwhile, the celestial spirits receives explanation from Lucy of what is going on.

"Is this interesting..."

Suddenly, the mist around the silhouette cleared completely, revealing a man on the platform. The albino grinned a smile which would rival even that of a Cheshire cat's. True to his appearance, his eyes were a scalding iron red, and his hair, as white as death.

Natsu was confused. When did he get here?

"Who the hell are you?!" Natsu demanded. The dragon slayer looked around, but apart from himself and the man, all he could see was black fog. He faced the albino stranger.

"Where are my guild mates?!"

"Here they're," he replied coolly.

"Whoa, what's up with your grammar?"

"Natsu, is there someone there?" Shouted out a voice from within the fog. He turned his head around. "Erza!" Said Natsu as he looked towards the direction in which her voice came from.

"Wait... That voice..." Started another voice, in which Natsu identified as Lucy's

"Lucy?"

"Isn't... He..."

The man chuckled.

"Name the is Calartemis."

He then clicked his fingers. "Boreas Twister."

"Huh?"

Suddenly, as by the command of Calartemis, there was an immediate whirl of wind that began to circle the area.

The wind spun with so much power, Natsu's feet was immediately lifted off the ground without hesitation.

"Whoa!"

Natsu felt like he was going down the drain as he was tossed from left to right, except instead of going down, he was going upwards.

He looked down, and saw the albino was still standing firmly on the platform, completely unaffected by the wind.

Then he was whisked away completely and into the sky.

The tornado also swept up some of the black fog, so it was hard to see, and forget about smelling when the wind continued to spin nonstop, but through the roaring wind, he could still hear some of his guild mates.

Without warning, Natsu's head got hit by a hard surface before he fainted from the impact.

\---

"Natsu?"

A voice called from the darkness.

He opened his eyes, his vision slightly blurry.

"Ugh..."

"He's fine now!" said Happy.

Natsu sat up.

"Ugh... What happened...?" Wondered Natsu out loud as he rubbed his head.

"Because of that albino person, we are now apparently in the middle of nowhere," said Gray.

Natsu looked around.

From as far as the eye could see, there was an infinite ocean of rounded grass.

"True... This is just great," said a voice.

Natsu recognised it as Loke's- no, in this case, the eclipsed Leo's voice.

He turned around and stood up, before walking towards eclipse Leo, who was sitting down while rubbing his head.

"Hey, eclipse Loke!"

He glanced at him.

"My name is Leo! And what do you mean by 'eclipse'?"

"Yeah, whatever, where the hell are we?"

"I... don't have the slightest clue either..." He replied.

"Huh?"

"I had no control over that tornado. He did."

"He? Who do you mean he?"

"Calartemis," he replied.

"Wait, that albino guy? Why did he want to bring us here?" Why does he want to do that, anyway?

"It's to stop us from going to Iris Hill," said a voice behind him.

He turned around.

"Eclipse Virgo? Wait, Iris Hill?"

"Why would you want to go there?" Asked Happy.

"Iris hill... Oh, wait!" Said Leo.

He stood up and walked towards Lucy, who was sitting on the ground while rubbing her head.

"I think I need an answer for a question," he said sternly, almost demandingly. Lucy looked at Leo, slightly confused.

"Huh? Oh, right! The question before the tornado sent us here!" Exclaimed Lucy.

"So tell me. What did you mean when you said you and those other people are from the future?"

"Well... We... Are..."

Leo looked at her, surprised. "... What?"

"Yeah, some chick we were supposed to capture would be the reason," said Natsu.

"It was a person? Nonsense. A person doesn't have that much magic power to have the ability to send people back through time. Fine. If you all are actually from the future, then prove it."

Lucy reached her belt for her key ring, only to find nothing.

"Hey, wait- oh... Right..." Realised Lucy. Calartemis took them...

"Huh?"

"Calartemis took my keys," she replied.

Leo raised an eyebrow. "Your keys?"

The celestial Mage faced him. "Yes, my celestial gate keys."

Leo thought. Even though there can only be twelve celestial spirit mages in the whole world, the blonde claims she and her companions are from the future. So does that mean...

"Are you our owner in the future?"

"Owner? Well... I don't really like to use that term... Friend is more appropriate," replied Lucy truthfully.

Leo was confused.

Friend? Why would a human see celestial spirits as equals?

"Well... That could explain how you knew our names."

"That's right-"

Suddenly, without warning, the ground beneath them collapsed, and they fell down into the pitch darkness.

"Wait, why did the ground collapse?!" Realised Lucy.

"I don't think it's ground..." Started Erza.

They looked above and saw the 'ground' they were standing on is actually the foliage of trees bunched up to look like ground, explaining why the grass was rounded.

"it's not ground at all! It's tree!" She said, while looking at the side. With the light from above, they saw long, skinny tree trunks and vines near the top.

And then suddenly, they all landed with a squelch. Whatever light there was above disappeared as the trees joined together and patched up the gap within the treetops.

"Eww... We landed into a swamp," said Charlés as she stood up.

With the sun being blocked, only pitch darkness can be seen. Natsu tried to light his fist to try and see in the dark, but it instantly got extinguished.

"Damn... It must be the humidity in here," said Natsu.

He sniffed the air, but he could only smell salt and swamp water.

"And I can't smell anything, either." Suddenly, a sound rushed towards behind him. The dragon slayer turned around.

"Huh? Ow!" Natsu felt a sharp pain across his arm, and felt a burning, fizzing sensation as an acid like thing melted into the tissue.

He heard Gray behind him also shout out in pain. But then Natsu heard another similar sound rushing behind him.

"Oh, not this time! Iron fist of the fire dragon!" He yelled while turning around and igniting his fist on fire.

Natsu striked a branch with his fire clad fist, but a thick slime covering the branch quickly reduced the glowing fire into mere smoke. The smoke drifted upwards towards Natsu's nose, and Natsu felt sleepy. Being a dragon slayer, his sense of smell is more sensitive, and he instantly fainted from the sickly smell.

"Natsu?" Yelled out Gray.

No response.

"Everyone, be careful! The branches are dangerous! Ice make spear!"

"Right then! Guess I will fight against those branches too!" Replied Lucy's voice.

"Fleuve d'etoile!"

Suddenly, Lucy's whip was taken by the branch. It was hard to see in the darkness, but Leo suddenly heard a sound rushing towards Lucy.

"That must be a branch!" He thought.

He quickly ran in front of Lucy, between her and the branch.

Mustering all his power, he said:

"Oh regulus, grant me your power... Regulus Punch!"

A beam of light hit the tree branch, shredding it to pieces. The claw like branch retracted, making a sound as if almost sounding in pain while some parts of it turned into soggy ash. Leo's light illuminated some parts of the branch, allowing the people to see what is going on.

Leo panted.

"Ugh... That took a lot of my magic power..."

"Light harms the trees..." Thought Gray as he looked over to the illuminated area.

"That's it!" He realised.

"Hey! Eclipse Loke! Over here!"

"Huh?"

"Strike this!"

With his ice magic glowing, Gray created a large, hexagonal prism above him.

"The trees are sensitive to light! Strike the ice to illuminate this whole forest! Quick, do it now when you could still see it!"

"Right! Lion brilliance!" Light rushed towards the ice object. As it hit, bright, shining light illuminated the whole forest, reducing the trees all to ash and uncovering the sunlight.

Shortly afterwards, Leo felt dizzy and fainted from the loss of magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... It took a month... Again...
> 
> And this chapter was probably pretty bad and stuff. This chapter is probably the suckiest thing ever. I know. It's probably a really stupid chapter, and you're probably expecting more. I'm sorry. I suck at fight scenes.
> 
> Homework and school is also a major problem, since there is more homework this year than last year, and I also have exams coming up.
> 
> Finishing this fanfic before 2017 is looking pretty uncertain...


	11. Secrets Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn in this chapter some of Leo's past. And could it be he had an agreement with Calartemis?

At first, everything was dark. No light, no colour, only black. However, a couple of seconds later, Leo realised the reason everything was dark was because his eyes are closed.

He opened his eyes slowly, and rubbed his forehead, feeling dizzy from the loss of magic energy from that spell before.

Leo sat up and looked around. The humans and those cats were not moving an inch, staring into blank space and positioned in poses that would've been difficult to hold. He glanced towards the side and saw that the hair of the scarlet haired one is frozen in midair.

Leo quickly realised everything was completely petrified, even the trees from earlier, which are caught in the process of becoming ash.

Is time frozen...? If so, then that must mean-

"Awake? Finally."

The lion spirit jolted a bit from surprise as he heard the voice. He turned his head around to where the direction of the voice came from. And sure enough, it was Calartemis, his grin of a maniac gone and replaced with a frown. Calartemis was rarely seen without his signature cheshire cat grin. If he doesn't have it on, then he must be pissed.

Calartemis was wearing an ebony sleeveless cheongsam with cloud white piping, and tied to his hips is a sash with the same white colour as the piping. Over his shoulders is a white capelet sealed with a copper brooch on the right.

The albino mage waved his right hand a bit, and weight off Leo's wrists immediately disappeared.

Weight? Oh... Right. The chains of Cronus... They were about to disappear anyway.

Calartemis held out a glowing key with the head of a lion. However, the key is different from the other keys, as it glowed red as if it was being heated up in a furnace. Leo looked at the key, remembering that day when it felt like half of himself were being torn apart.

"Back go to the world you're from, come back then after an hour," he ordered impatiently.

Just before he got transported back to his world, he caught a glimpse of another copy of his key hanging from the sash around Calartemis's waist, and this time, it looked normal.

Wait... Where did he-

But his thoughts were immediately cut short when he arrived back to the celestial spirit world, where the air was less suffocating, and where the sky is a deep, navy blue.

Out of instinct, he inhaled deeply while he felt his whole body replenish with energy.

"Leo...?"

Wait, what? Oh, right.

Time is frozen in the human world, but in this world, time still continue to flow.

Aries looked into the deep, navy planet filled sky of the celestial spirit world, thinking.

She rarely thought of things thoroughly, preferring a 'just tell me' approach to questions, no details, just the answer.

But this time, Leo's answer to what happened during that fight was just not enough. Things just do not add up.

That day before the fight happened, Aries came back from the human world, bruises covering her along with a heavily bleeding wound on her head. And then Leo saw it. She and the others would often try to hide their wounds before Leo can see it. But this time, Leo must've thought something doesn't seem right, and he waited right next to the porthole between the human world and the celestial spirit world to see just what they have been hiding.

She tried to convince him it's not that much of a deal, and that it'll just heal like any old wound, and it doesn't hurt that much, anyway. The only problem is, it didn't start to heal like it does most of the time she goes back to the celestial spirit world. Shortly before, Calartemis ordered Arachnen to paralyse the wound with poison, so it healed much more slowly. As soon as he saw that the wound didn't heal straight away, he knew something was wrong.

He asked her who did it, and after a lot of persuading, she responded: Calartemis.

Back then, Leo didn't have an owner, because as the strongest of the Zodiac spirits, his key was reserved for someone powerful, preferrably a king. Because of this, he never knew the true nature of humans, and as soon as she replied with the name of her owner, he immediately assumed humans are ill natured.

Without hesitation, he went to the human world to try and force Calartemis to free them.

That was a stupid choice.

Nobody can beat Calartemis or his slyness. And then he came back without half his-

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she heard a 'whoosh' behind her. She turned around towards the porthole, and saw Leo kneeling on the ground, immediately inhaling the air.

"Leo...?" She quietly said, as it was the first thing that came to mind.

Wait, but if Leo's here, then where's Aquarius and Virgo? He glanced at her, and then silver light surrounded him, signalling that he was about to return to the human world.

How come he's going back to the human world after such a short amount of time? Where is Aquarius and Virgo?

"Wait! Leo, don't LEAVE-"

But before Aries could even finish her sentence, Leo was gone leaving only traces of silver dust.

Calartemis was sitting patiently on a tree branch frozen in time as he waited for the lion spirit co come back. He looked down at his palm.

It has been an hour, and Calartemis felt his body fill back with magical energy, and his age slowly replenish as the wrinkles on his palm disappear. However, new wrinkles started to carve into his hand, replacing the ones vanished by youth.

Calartemis frowned.

He knew even though he had an agreement with the lion spirit, he still can't run away from that damn taboo.

A taboo is like an eternal, incurable disease. Even if you try to cure that disease over and over again, it will still come back, and interfere with you more.

While he was thinking, there was a 'whoosh' sound. In response, he looked up, and sure enough, it was the lion spirit, kneeling down and panting.

"You took long enough," he growled out of the corner of his mouth as he stood up, eyes drilling at the back of the lion's head. Leo didn't notice at all, and he continued to pant.

While grabbing Leo's ginger hair, he yanked up the golden clad lion spirit's head.

"Listen. Thought I we had an agreement that will you not use your light magic until my power recover completely." He hissed, words like venom as he grabbed Leo's hair harder, making Leo slightly wince in pain.

"Just answer now. Did why you use your fucking magic when I ordered you to pretend you lost it?"

"It's... It's..." Then there was ten seconds of silence.

"Answer me now, you mongrel," he snarled as he positioned his fist behind him.

Black electricity climbed up Calartemis's arms, engulfing his fist with back electricity.

"-was about to get struck by a branch," he heard Leo say before Leo looked down at his lips, looking shocked at what he just say. Of course. He owns it, and he could use it to order him to do whatever, and it'll happen automatically.

"What?" He was so busy casting his spell when Leo started to talk, he didn't hear him.

"It was because Hime was about to get struck by a branch."

"That blonde girl?"

"Yes."

"And why?"

"... She was about to get struck by that branch," he replied. He looked at his mouth again. Dammit, it's so annoying!

"What's and important about her," started Calartemis as he stood up and circled Leo like a vulture waiting for it's prey to die, "that makes you want to spare her?" He paused in front of Leo, waiting as he glared at him. Leo looked around, slightly nervous.

"She... She was our guide, and other than that... I don't know- She claimed she was me, Aquarius and Virgo's owner in the future," He blurted out. He widened his eyes in surprise. He wasn't supposed to say that!

"Huh. I well know that already. As I said, perfect she's for my plan," he said. Leo looked at him, confused. Plan? What plan? And how did he know Hime was his owner in his future?

"Oh, yes! Right. Were you frozen in time, and you didn't hear that conversation," he said.

"What conversation?"

"She when arrived here, I froze time, we talked, yada yada yada," he replied. He clicked his fingers, and Leo felt the heavy chains of Cronus on his wrists again.

He held up his right hand, preparing to click.

"Also, make sure she is in one piece by the time you and those others arrive there. Wilderness the is very, well, hazardous. And need I her magic for something."

Calartemis needs her magic for something? For what?

"Oh, and also, mention don't this conversation to anyone."

Click!

Leo blinked. Time started to flow again, and the ashes of the trees began to drift down. Did that whole coversation just happen?

"Loke!" He heard from behind.

"It's Leo," he said as he turned around, facing the blonde.

Yes, she's the 'owner' of his future self and all, but he can't imagine someone calling him Loke. Why would his future self even allow that?

"I... Thought you can't use your Regulus magic anymore."

"That? No, it was... Just a one time thing. Something out of shock..." He lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, guess this is it.
> 
> I'm sorry everyone. I just don't know how to continue this fanfic. Yep, you all heard me, this is the last chapter of TOtP.
> 
> ...
> 
> You seriously thought of that?
> 
> Look at the date, silly!
> 
> APRIL FOOL'S EVERYBODY!
> 
> The story's not over yet!


	12. To Iris Hill!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Team Natsu learns about Ophiuchus and why the celestial spirits need to go to Iris Hill. After that, Natsu makes a deal with Leo.

It was a while after Natsu came to. When he woke up, he saw Wendy beside him using her magic to heal him. But other than that, he noticed that it wasn't that dark anymore. He looked around, and discovered the trees were gone.

"Natsu, you're awake!" Exclaimed Wendy happily.

"Ugh... Where did all the trees go?" He wondered out loud as he stood up. As soon as he said that, Happy flew over by his side.

"They turned into ash," replied Happy.

"Ash? But I was unconscious!"

"No, it was because their weakness was light," said Happy. Their weakness is light? What tree has a weakness of light? Natsu thought for a moment what caused the trees to turn into ash.

"So Erza destroyed them with her lightning empress armour?" It had to be since not only is it associated with light, but the armour had the power to disintegrate things to begin with.

"Actually, it was Leo and Gray who disintegrated the trees," said Erza. What?!

"Eclipse Loke?! No way!" Natsu exclaimed.

"What's so surprising about that?" Said Leo who suddenly appeared.

"Don't you use that chimney smoke magic?" Asked Natsu when he turned around to face Leo. The celestial spirit looked at him, puzzled.

"Chimney... Smoke...?"

"Dark Regulus? Oh right," realised Natsu. That was somehow them in the future and this is in the past or now or something, all this is getting a bit confusing. Leo looked at him while his eyebrows slightly raised up in surprise.

"Oh right? What do you mean by oh right?" Asked Leo impatiently.

"Err... What I meant was..." Natsu's eyes darted around, looking for an appropriate answer. How is he gonna explain this? 'It was because your future self changed into your appearance and personality of the current you and then I fought your future self who used dark regulus and the reason he used dark regulus is because he changed into you'? Actually, that sort of seem like a logical answer.

"It was because your future self changed into your appearance and personality of the current you and then I fought your future self who used dark regulus and the reason he used dark regulus is because he changed into you." Leo looked at him with an even more confused look on his face.

"... What?"

"Wait, so Leo was using dark regulus?" Asked a voice from behind.

"Virgo? Yeah he was," he replied to Virgo as he turned around.

"Huh... That's weird. Leo usually wouldn't use dark regulus..." She muttered.

"But I thought Leo's regulus powers are gone," said Aquarius. He has to admit, seeing Aquarius as a little kid instead of a moody mermaid is really strange.

"Ah, yes, uh... It... Was only a one time thing. Just... A random burst of magic," said Leo uncertainly. Those words triggered something.

"Wait. Now that I thought of it... You never explained why we need to go to this Iris Hill place," said Natsu.

"Oh yeah!" Realised Lucy from the left, "Before you go the chance to finish, we fell into the forest!"

Leo looked at Lucy and the rest of team Natsu.

"Fine. It's been long enough," he said. He took a deep breath in.

"It's because Iris Hill is where Ophiuchus is imprisoned," he quickly said. Huh?

"Ophiuchus? That snake lady?" Natsu asked and stated as he tilted his head aside. "But then why isn't she up the celestial spirit world with the rest of you celestial spirits?" Leo scrunched up his eyebrows.

"Snake lady?" He asked with a puzzled expression.

"Yeah, she wore a nurse outfit and stuff."

"And don't forget she was a gigantic purple snake during the Grand Magic Games!" Added in Happy.

"... Huh?"

"Wait, why does Ophiuchus has two forms?" Asked Aquarius.

"Hmm, well it's sort of a bit tougher to explain," said Gray.

"Gray, your clothes," said Charlés. Gray looked down to see that he was only in his pants.

"Where did they go?!"

The celestial spirits stayed silent as Gray searched for his clothes.

"... Anyway, we need to go to Iris Hill since Ophiuchus is imprisoned there, and Calartemis wants to obtain her key."

"Imprisoned? What for?" Asked Natsu.

"And why does Calartemis want to obtain Ophiuchus's key?" Leo ignored the first question.

"It was... It was because she committed a crime."

"But what was the crime?"

"Well..." He looked to the side a bit. "She tried to take over as the ruler of us celestial spirits. She felt that she deserved to be more respected, being the thirteenth spirit and all, but the King stopped her. The King banished her to the human realm and stripped her of her physical form."

"Wow... That's... Slightly brutal," said Lucy uncertainly.

"But then why would Calartemis want to obtain Ophiuchus's key?" Questioned Charlés.

"It is because our keys represents the power of the owner. It shows the owner killed the celestial spirit's previous master. Our keys were given to the top twelve most powerful wizards in the world. If one wizard obtain all the celestial gate keys, then that means that wizard is the most powerful wizard of them all," explained Leo.

"Wait, so that Cutlery dude wants to also obtain that snake lady's key to show he's powerful? Well that's dumb. If he wants to show if he's powerful, then why doesn't he come fight to show it?" Stated Natsu out loud.

"Natsu, I think his name is Calartemis," corrected Gray who came back from finding his clothes.

"Whatever, it was a bit hard to pronounce anyway."

"No, he just wants to be... Powerful. Plain power; that's it," said Leo. Suddenly, Leo thought of something.

"Let's make a deal, shall we?" Natsu glanced at him.

"What kind of deal?"

"You're all from the future. Right?"

"Yeah, we told you that!" He said, annoyed.

"Do you all know where Iris Hill is?"

"Yeah..." Well it's a hill in Crocus so it wouldn't be that hard to find.

"Iris Hill is a hotspot of time portholes."

"And?"

"And me, Aquarius and Virgo are celestial spirits. Us celestial spirits have the power to open portholes."

"Wait, but I thought it was the keys-"

"Along with the help of gate keys," Leo added.

"So if you all lead us to Iris Hill, then you can all go back to your timeline and Ophiuchus won't be in the hands of Calartemis." Leo stuck out his hand towards Natsu. "Deal?"

Natsu thought for a moment.

"Deal!" he concluded as he shook hands with Leo.

"So we're going to Iris Hill?" Asked Wendy.

"I'm pretty sure it's westwards from here," said Erza.

"So... Westwards," said Gray as he looked at the sun. It is probably sometime around afternoon by now, so the direction the sun is facing should be in the direction of Iris Hill.

"That way, then!" He concluded.

"Alright! Let's go to Iris Hill!" Yelled Natsu as they walked westwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Another month, another chapter. So it's now official; TOtP updates are now once every month. I might update faster, but yeah...


	13. Gabriel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feng asked questions to Calartemis, but he almost died while doing so. Ko then appears on the scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: A lot of headcanons which some people may not agree with. I apologise if I upset anyone.

Calartemis watched the projected image of Natsu and Leo shaking hands as he lazily sat on his stone throne.

"Finally," he breathed out. They were finally going in the right direction.

Shortly after those other wizards arrived, Calartemis found out they were more south than where the destination is. That was why he created the twister so that they would go on the right course. However it did drain him a lot in terms of magic, and when the lion spirit used his magic it was going a bit too far. Calartemis had to use some of his stored magic specifically used for his immortality to get there. Even when the agreement was made the taboo was still there and he continued to age. Damn taboo. Damn mortal ageing body.

Opaque fog appeared at the front, catching Calartemis's attention.

"Tragic day, my lord," said Feng as he appeared. Said person glanced at Feng.

"Saying stop that everything tragic," he sighed as he rubbed his temples. "Are what you here for?"

"Well I have rather tragic... Questions I need to ask."

"Like what?" He snapped back.

"Like... Why do you need the blonde Mage at Iris Hill?" Calartemis looked at him while he raised a snow white eyebrow at that question.

"You why need to know?"

"I just need to know. After all, why pick us as your helpers if we do not know the task?"

"... Fine," said the god Mage after a while of thinking. Extending a palm, he showed the picture of a blue globe with a tiny orb at both sides.

"The celestial globe. Is it full of celestial spirit magic. Almost I obtained the magic, but alas, I not did obtain it."

"But how-"

"Wait. And in the end, Ko unconscious was for a week from loss of magic." Feng remembered it very well. She was so out of magic her hair actually turned brown.

"But then what happened to make her out of magic?" He asked.

"Hmm... You well know how Ko once encountered someone who practise time magic?"

"... Yes?" Ko's magic is mostly based on memories and thoughts. "Does that tragically mean... She was drained of magic because she sent-"

"Yes. Sent she me to the future since it is the next time where magic is at its highest. The in future, will there be a globe full of celestial spirit magic."

"But what do you need celestial spirit magic for?" The blood red eyes spun around and stared at Feng, making Feng's insides jolt. Threateningly, the eyes narrowed, judging.

The eyes spun back as Feng let out a sigh of relief. Even though he knew Calartemis wasn't going to do anything drastic, such as killing him, the glare still made him fearful.

"Need I more celestial spirit magic. Anyway, since I have more magic energy than Ko, it mostly drained her," continued Calartemis, changing the topic. "Knew I that those celestial spirit in future would not answer to my orders. What so did I do? As souls need less magical energy, asked I to her to send the souls of the celestial spirits into the future."

"Souls? But-"

"And into the body of them in the future," continued on Calartemis. Souls into the bodies of the future celestial spirits? That's... Insane! Just what did he cook up in his tragically insane mind of his?

"But then what happens to the souls of those future celestial spirits?" He asked out of curiosity.

Calartemis raised an eyebrow.

"You are... Trying to get more answer than you need." Calartemis stood up. "What for?" He asked, voice quieting down to a dangerous tone. Quick as a flash, the god Mage stuck out a hand as if to grasp an invisible neck. Feng gasped a bit from surprise as he felt an icy cold palm grasp onto his neck, though in reality, there was nothing.

As Calartemis raised his arm, Feng began to raise up as well. He struggled against the grasp, reaching out for his neck in instinct.

"Answer!" Barked Calartemis. Instead, Calartemis's grasp collapsed as Feng exploded into fog. The fog floated back down, where Feng reformed.

"My lord?" A voice said from Feng's back.

"Ko?" At Calartemis's words, the ginger haired Mage appeared.

"It's time again," she said.

"Ah. Feng, get out," he said.

"But-"

"Get out, Feng," he said through gritted teeth. "Tricks your won't work this time, old man." Feng obeyed and disappeared.

There was only the echoes of Calartemis's boots tapping the ground as he walked towards the centre of the room. He kneeled in front of Ko, waiting for the ritual to begin.

Blue mist came out of his chest and floated in front of him. His head went limp with only a shallow breathing.

Ko stuck out her hands and muttered an incantation. Immediately there was a glowing orange magic circle circling under the body.

After around fifteen minutes, the magic circle shrunk smaller and smaller before it was completely gone. The blue mist returned to the body.

Calartemis took a deep breath in as his soul returned to his body. He breathed out. He felt rejuvenated and more powerful, as in he can take down anything.

"Are you dismissed." Ko nodded and walked away.

"Oh, and Gabriel-" Calartemis froze at the name.

Gabriel... Gabriel... That's him...

"Calartemis it's. Do I not know who this Gabriel is. So?" he calmly replied back. Ko judged him for a bit.

"Hm. Nothing," she said as she walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you do not know what Ko was doing, it was that she was expanding Calartemis's magical capacity.
> 
> Welp. I was afraid to post this chapter. But here it is.
> 
> So. Let me explain:
> 
> At the chapter: quarrel, explanation, apology, Leo commented on 'a strange dream'. That was not a dream at all but was actually a memory of his soul being in the body of him in the future (Loke). Yeah..


	14. Hidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy suddenly realise that they were actually walking in the wrong direction all along. However, all hope is not lost when Leo finds something, though excluding Lucy, it's hidden from the rest of Team Natsu.

It has been almost a day of hiking by now. They have now left the grappling mangrove trees and have now stepped into a world of shining gold and copper leaves adorned on deep black trunks.

Aquarius swung her arms as she looked around. No hill was to be seen anywhere, just more miles of the flat land which hosted more of the trees.

"So... When will we be at Iris Hill?" Aquarius asked all of a sudden to Lucy.

"Oh, umm... Geez. I don't know. I guess we've just have to keep going westwards," she replied. At those words Leo stopped.

"Westwards? Is that it? We have been walking westwards for two days and Iris Hill is still not in sight. Is that seriously your only-" Leo suddenly stopped mid sentence as if he remembered something. He took a deep breath.

"Do you have any other clue on where Iris Hill may be?" He asked with a completely different tone. Lucy was surprised at Leo's tone of voice. After all, why is he changing his attitude so suddenly? Regardless, Lucy replied:

"We... Do know that Iris Hill is located in Crocus." At those words, Virgo raised her eyebrow.

"Crocus? Where is that?" Asked Virgo.

"Wait, what?" The exceeds shouted.

"Is it a place name or...?"

"Crocus is the capital of Fiore!"

"Wait a second. Crocus was built in X301." The words triggered a piece of information in Lucy's memory. And it was not good.

"Oh no. Iris Hill was named after Crocus... Was... Established." The others froze completely as they heard those words. So they were actually going in the path of the wrong Iris Hill?!

"Oh god," muttered Leo as he sat on a rock and rubbed his temples. "This is bad, this is bad, this is bad," he whispered over and over again. He rubbed his face and looked at the deep blue sky.

Deep blue? He could have sworn it was afternoon. He looked towards the opposite direction and he saw that there was a strongly contrasting pale blue. As he gazed upwards, so did everybody else. Leo saw that the sky was definitely altered by magical means. After all, if it was dusk, the pale blue would have melted into the deep blue colour more subtly. Not only that, but the colour was exactly the same shade of the sky at Iris Hill.

Leo can feel the excitement bubble inside him as he looked out front. There stretched out in the valley beyond them were several hills all made of dark rock. The hills were in their thousand, each of which must leads to a different dimension.

"It's near here," he breathed out. "Now we just have to find the right one.

"Near here? I dunno. All I see is more flat land," said Gray. Lucy and the celestial spirits looked at him, confused.

"Really? So as in, you can't see a valley full of hills? At all?" Asked Lucy. Happy sprouted his wings and flew towards the direction in which they were facing.

"Geez, Lucy, I'm not too sure what you're ta-" And then suddenly, Happy disappeared just as he went to the edge of the valley.

"Where did he go?" The others looked at them, confused.

"What are you talking about? He's right there in front of you." At that response, Lucy thought of something. Why can't they see Happy, yet the others can? Why can they see a valley beyond them yet the others can't? Suddenly she thought of the answer. She stuck her arm out.

"All of you. Can you see my arm?"

"... We can," answered the celestial spirits. Team Natsu, though, seems dumbstruck, as if half her arm I'd missing.

"I knew it! The valley must be in a separate dimension, which was why Happy disappeared in my, Leo's Virgo's, and Aquarius's eyes, but not in Natsu's, Erza's, Gray's, Charlés's, or Wendy's eyes."

"Oh yeah!" Said Virgo, "It must've been concealed so that non celestial spirits cannot find the valley."

"Why can only celestial spirits find the valley?" At those words asked by Erza, Virgo paused while she thought the answer.

"Hm. To be honest, I don't know either."

"I can see the valley clearly," said Lucy. "Is it something to do with me being a celestial spirit Mage?"

"Not likely. Calartemis can't see the valley at all, even when he has celestial spirit magic." An idea popped out in Aquarius's mind.

"It was the celestial spirit clothing Lucy was wearing! Since they're from the celestial spirit world, they must have some sort of effect that made Lucy have the ability to see the valley!"

"Hm. Seems legit. Doesn't seem to hurt to try it," said Virgo as she snapped her fingers. All of a sudden, Gray, Erza, Natsu, Happy, Charlés, and Wendy were all dressed in celestial spirit clothing.

Natsu was in a tyrian long sleeved tunic with an ash coloured capelet bearing the constellation of Scorpio. Erza wore a flowing silvery Egyptian garment speckled with golden stars near the hem which reached just past her knees along with jet black boots. Gray wore a green hanfu lined with black which had the symbol of Gemini sewn on the right sleeve. Wendy wore an orange peplos with a darker coloured Aries constellation. Meanwhile, Happy wore a light blue chiton with a darker coloured star located near the shoulder while a peplos similar to Wendy's adorned Charlés.

"So did it work?"

"It works alright. Man, that is such a big valley!" Exclaimed Natsu as he scanned the horizon.

"Better start going there now then," said Leo as he leaded them down the steep side of the valley.

"You know, we can just fly them down instead of you all having to walk down from here," said Charlés.

\---

"Phew! Finally. My arms were about to fall off," complained Happy as he floated back down along with Charlés.

"Oh wait, I thought of something important," said Wendy. The others looked at her in response.

"What is it?"

"How are we supposed to know which hill is Iris Hill?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. God, this chapter was really hard to complete. Especially the celestial clothing part. In fact, I did an alternative version:
> 
> Natsu was in a tyrian long sleeved tunic with an ash coloured capelet bearing the constellation of Scorpio. Erza wore a flowing silvery Egyptian garment speckled with golden stars near the hem which reached just past her knees along with jet black boots
> 
> "Hey, what about us?!"
> 
> "Sorry, ran out of outfit ideas."
> 
> Anyway, the reason this chapter was delayed a bit was because I was going to do a different approach to the chapter before and just when I was polishing the chapter up, I realised I didn't like it. And that's why I rewrote it into this.
> 
> However, there is one thing about that chapter which wasn't scrapped. That is why you will meet him in the next chapter.


	15. Asphalt and Mercury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as they are beginning to go to Iris Hill, Ko appears and blocks their way. After they were done with that problem, they have to face a new tricky foe, though he is not what he seems to be...

"Geez... How are we supposed to tell them apart?" Asked Natsu as he peered around the valley. Identical asphalt hills stretched out for miles with no sign of discontinuation. Aquarius scanned the area uncertainly.

"Hmm... To be honest, the celestial spirits just knew the hill as Iris Hill," she confessed. "They never knew that Iris Hill is located in a valley with other hills."

"So that means that even if we actually do find the right hill, we wouldn't know for certain that it is the one we're looking for?" Asked Charlés.

"Correct."

Virgo looked at a hill. Since they are made out of solid black earth, maybe she could tell which hill is Iris Hill. She approached the hill near her and placed her palm on the rough texture while she concentrated. Lucy noticed.

"Huh? Virgo, what are you-"

"Not this one," she concluded as her gloved hand left the base of the hill. "I cannot sense any celestial spirit magic here at all."

"But then why are you- oh right," said Natsu as he realised. "It's because you're trying to sense Ophiucus' presence."

"That is correct, Natsu, is it?"

"Yep," replied Natsu. "But really, I can just sniff out where she is," he said as sniffed the air.

"... Sniff?" Questioned Leo with a puzzled expression.

"Dragon slayer magic. It enhances my senses to that of a dragon's," he replied casually as he sniffed more.

"Nope, nothing. I can't smell her scent anywhere. I wonder why is that?"

"It's Ophiuchus' soul which is imprisoned in the hill. I don't think souls would have much smell," reasoned Virgo.

"Hm. You're right. Well looks like we just have to walk more and find which hill is-"

"Stop where you are at," ordered a stern voice. They stare in shock at-

"... Ko?"

"Turn back. Now." They could see the alarm in her dark brown eyes. As she talked, a trickle of blood leaked out of the cut of her left cheek.

"But aren't you on his side?" Leo asked, spitting out the word his like an insult.

"No time to explain," she replied grimly. "If you continue your journey to the hill then e-" Suddenly Ko stopped mid sentence, as if she remembered something important. "... No matter what, you can't go."

"You can't stop us," replied Gray. Ko furrowed her eyebrows, almost as if she was disappointed. She took a deep breath.

"... You left me with no choice other than this," she said grimly. Her palms collided with the ground. After a whisper of an incantation, the ground quaked violently. Lucy gazed down and saw a crack appearing between where she was standing.

The earth teared apart.

As Ko melted away, large chunks of the asphalt flew everywhere, which sent them all into the air. A particularly large chunk the size of an elephant flew towards Natsu.

"Ah shit! Iron fist of the FIRE DRAGON!" The force of the attack made the boulder crack before flying everywhere in flames.

"Wendy! Look out behind you!" Yelled Lucy. Wendy did as she was told and saw another large rock with a sharp point just centimetres from her nose.

"Wing slash of the SKY DRAGON!" Just in time as well, as the rock smoothly split into two slabs before it did any damage. Yet.

One of the slabs stopped. Then it accelerated as it gone upwards and charged to Wendy.

"Careful Wendy!"

"Aah!" Yelled Wendy as Charlés flew her out of harm's way just in time.

"Geez, just how far up are we-" questioned Charlés as she looked down. She gasped when she saw that the black asphalt hills are nothing but pinpricks.

"Whoa we're high up!" Yelled Gray. He made a face of realisation. "We shouldn't have underestimated her. This would have taken a lot of magical energy. Just what kind of magic can do this?!"

"Fleuve d'étoile!"

"Demon Sakura blade!"

"Bubble shot!"

Spells flew all over the place and shattered the rocks until the rocks broke down to nothing more than powder.

"Phew! I think we're safe!" Said Lucy. Just when she said those words, however, the rock powder in front of her clustered together and reformed into sharp earth debris.

"Wha? Argh!" The piece of asphalt zoomed towards her and red was spilt.

"Lucy!" The others yelled.

The area around Lucy's right shoulder gushed out with blood as the surrounding area of Lucy's sleeve became darker. She grabbed onto her arm as she inhaled a hiss at the pain.

Through Lucy's peripheral vision, she saw another rock which rushed towards Erza.

"Erza! Behind you!"

Erza ducked and the rock zoomed passed her. However just as it passed her it took a sudden turn and rammed into her abdomen hard, which sent her flying to another boulder. Just as she was about to make contact, Erza summoned a large hammer and slammed it out of the way. After all, if she severed it, it will reform anyway.

A realisation appeared in Virgo's head. At the rate they're going, no progress will be made. As she thought of it, however, a plan appeared in her mind. It may not work, but now there are no other option. Even if it drains her of her energy, if it is not done then they will all be crushed by the rocks.

Virgo got into a vertical position and concentrated.

"Concentrate... Concentrate... Feel the energy of the earth... Be one with the energy of the earth.." She can sense a disruption in the earth's energy. All she have to do is to discontinue the disruption. The disruption, however, is rather strange. It's almost as if... Time is rewinding?

Nevertheless, she will stop this disruption.

Virgo flung her arms to the side. A tremendous aura which came from Virgo spread throughout the entire area. All the rocks froze. Then it all fell down. It was only then when they realise that they are about to plummet to the earth as well.

"Roar of the sky dragon!" Wind surrounded them as they fell down. The spell slowed down their fall and they floated down towards the flat remains of the hills. Ko's magic had only broken up a large slab of the land so that the area was now smooth.

"Too close. That was too close," said Lucy as she rubbed her head. Wendy went to her side and cast a spell. Immediately Lucy's shoulder wound healed.

"Thanks Wendy."

"You're welcome," she replied as she walked towards Erza. As Lucy looked at the fragments of stone, she thought of something.

"Hey... What if one of those hills is the hill we're looking for?"

"I don't think Iris Hill is near here at all, though. Virgo pointed out that she can't feel any celestial spirit magic at all," pointed out Erza.

"Makes sense. Though the thing is... Why did Ko try to stop us?"

"There must be something at Iris Hill that Ko is trying to hide," realised Charlés.

"So we have to find out just what it is Ko is trying to hide!" Concluded Wendy.

Gray clutched her head as she bent down.

"Gray?"

"I could sense a drastic drop in ethernano here," he explained. As he said it, Lucy felt a dizzy sensation in her head. It was like when one held their breath for too long. The dizziness felt so strong Lucy almost felt like fainting.

"Now that she said it, I can feel it as well."

"Ugh... God, so could I," said Virgo. Leo heard a sound. It was like the sound of fluid water, except it sounded slower than normal. The sound also had a more surreal feel to it. Just listening to it made him feel dizzy. The sound seemed to be coming from the other side of an untouched hill.

"Hang on, I can hear something," said Leo cautiously. Leo walked around the hill and looked around. Nothing, as far as he can tell. He walked around the giant asphalt hill as he looked for the source of that sound. But before he knew it, he was back where he started.

"It turns out nothing was there..." His speech was stopped when he saw that the others were staring wide eyes at something. Something behind him?

A gust of hot air blew onto his neck.

He can hear a low growl as he felt the air blow onto his neck. In front of him was a giant shadow. Leo realised what it is, then prepared for the worst. He turned around and stared into two enormous eyes like molten gold...

It was a dragon.

The dragon had a sleek, glossy body with a sheen like smooth, highly polished metal. Almost liquid like, in fact. Not a chip or graze of imperfection can be seen anywhere.

"Speak, you mortals," it rumbled as it spat out mortal like an offensive insult. "Don't just stare into empty space like the mindless fools you are. Why is it that you're entering my territory?" It sampled the air with its elegant snout.

"... You three are not humans," the dragon said as he looked down at the celestial spirits.

"No. We three are not humans," started Leo, "W-we three are celestial spirits. I am Leo, the leader of the Zodiacs. And we are on our way to Iris hill. If you may, move aside so we can continue on our journey," Leo declared. Though he tried to make those words sound as calm and regal as possible, somehow it didn't sound right. In fact, it sounded almost like pleading.

The dragon looked at him curiously. Then it smirked and snorted.

"But I don't care that you are the leader of the Zodiacs or anything like that," it started, voice with a hint of snarkiness. "I don't care at all if you are a king or a duke or anyone of royal blood. While you may be something grand in the eyes of some," the dragon said as he creeped forward, "in the eyes of others, you. Are. Worthless," it said, the tip of its nose just centimetres away from Leo.

It moved back and judged them all.

"Hmm... Well in my eyes, you are all tresspassers. And trespassers need to be EXTERMINATED!"

It swung its long, whiplike tail through the hill. Like a hot knife through butter, the hill cleanly slid into two. Then it started to slip and hit the ground. Just in time they moved out of the way.

"Jackass!" Natsu yelled as he jumped up to the dragon's hide. "Iron fist of the FIRE DRAGON!" His fire engulfed fist pierced the soft, vulnerable hide of the dragon.

Or so he thought.

Instead of a soft texture he thought he would feel, it felt like as if a thousand knives pierced into his fist. There was a great pain as warm, sticky blood dripped from his knuckles.

"What the-!"

"Those are the power of my scales. They are not big enough to see, but powerful nonetheless. Face it. You can't defeat me, you egocentric humans!"

A memory flashed as Leo heard the words of the dragon. Human... Human...

"Human, you think too highly of yourself."

"My turn! If we can't pierce your hide then surely a bit more force will do!" Gray suddenly yelled out. The surrounding air became colder as an ice hammer materialised in Gray's hands. As Gray jumped up and striked the dragon, the ice hammer slipped right off of the shiny surface before it could do any damage.

"Strange..." thought Natsu out loud. "I could have sworn its scales were spiky."

"Roar of the SKY DRAGON!" Wendy blew and blew. The dragon braced itself as powerful wind blew onto it.

A trail of liquid suddenly dripped out from its face, which gone horizontally due to the force of the wind.

"Huh?"

More trails of liquid started to leak. Wendy stopped her spell. The dragon took a deep breath and the trails disappeared.

"What... What kind of dragon are you?" The dragon glanced towards Natsu with its eyes like brass.

"I'm a dragon made of mercury," it simply replied. That planted a plan in Erza's mind.

"The dragon is made of mercury... That's it!"

"Requip!" Yelled Erza. And then she was gone.

"Erza!"

"Bastard! Where did you make Erza go?" Natsu yelled. The dragon seemed equally surprised as he looked at the space where Erza was.

"... She's gone forever," it said as it smirked.

"... What?" They asked, astounded.

"That is right. She is dead," announced the dragon. "Unless you want to end up just like her, go away now and your life will be spared," the dragon offered casually. As the dragon spoke those words, Natsu tightened her fist.

"... Do you realised what you just did?" How dare can the dragon act so casual when their friend just died. Golden eyes lazily glanced at the fire dragon slayer, clearly bored.

"Yes. I made that girl, Erza, to disappear." The disinterest in those words... It simply made Natsu's blood boil like magma.

"Y'know... Erza is much much more than just a girl." The surrounding air rippled with heat. "Erza is a Scarlet. An S class wizard. Frightening. A part of Fairy Tail." He looked up. "But most of all... SHE IS FAMILY!"

\---

Erza turned around, equipped into the ornate lightning empress armour and armed with the spear, ready to face the dragon. But it wasn't there.

Instead there was only the sight of the short ebony trees with leaves of copper.

She exhaled. It was so quiet that combined with the rustling of the leaves, her breathing was loud. How did she end up back here? Erza looked down to her armour and realised. When she requipped to her lightning empress armour, she got out of the celestial spirit clothing and therefore the dimension disappeared.

All she had to do is requip back to the celestial spirit clothing and she'll be back. But how will she defeat the dragon? Erza looked at her spear. Then she figured out the answer.

\---

The dragon looked at the fire and aura which surrounded Natsu, bewildered by the magic.

"This magic power... It's astounding!"

The dragon was so distracted that he didn't notice the static which rippled in the air from behind him.

"Lightning STRIKE!" Erza came out of thin air and striked the dragon with her spear. The dragon screamed as lightning crawled across his entire body. Its eyes rolled upwards and the dragon fell down with a thud.

"Erza!" They yelled.

"How did you come back?" Happy asked.

"I accidentally requipped out of the celestial spirit clothing Virgo gave me which made leave this dimension."

"But we thought you were dead!" Erza looked at Natsu, surprised.

"... Dead?"

"The dragon-"

"I have no control over these kind of things," whispered the dragon weakly.

"Huh?"

"I never caused that. I lied when I saw what happened. In fact, I'm not even a dragon."

As it spoke, the dragon started to lose form. It melted into a large fluid puddle of mercury before it started to shrink. It shrank and shrank until it was a puddle just big enough for any of them to lie onto. The puddle of mercury split into five parts and started to obtain a more solid shape. More delicate details started to form as the mercury rose more. A face, a leg, a nose...

"A person?"

There before them lied a person made entirely out of silver mercury. The mercury mimicked every single detail of a person. Even the very fibres of the tunic and strands of his long, thick braid were perfectly lifelike. It was... Bizarre.

"Go ahead," half whispered the man, voice completely unlike the dragon's though lugubrious. "Do whatever you want. Run away, continue on your journey, be afraid. Nothing is stopping you."

"... Who are you?" Asked Natsu. The man opened his golden eyes and glanced at them. His eyes were the same golden ones as the dragon's, with no whites to be seen anywhere, only markings to signify where the irises and pupils should be.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, are you actually a dragon or a person or what?" Asked Natsu. Erza and Gray face palmed. He continued to look at them, wide eyed and shocked by Natsu's response.

"Y-you don't think I'm cursed by the devil?" He asked as he stood up.

"Well are you?"

"No I'm not," he said, frowning and slightly frustrated. "I was a person just like all of you."

"Was?" At those words, he raised his eyebrows after he realised what he just said. And then he drooped down.

"... I traded my formal body to a sage." He looked down to his silver palm. "And in return I get this body of mercury." He sighed. "But it was worth it. Though at the same time, I hate it. Magic is a curse." There was a slight silence.

"If you're not a dragon, then how did you tell that we were celestial spirits?" Asked Leo.

"My body is sensitive to magic. I can easily tell your magic power," he replied. "I was merely sniffing the air to simulate a dragon's actions."

"Ah, alright," he replied. When he said that, an idea appeared to Lucy's mind.

"So, umm..."

"Argent."

"Argent, we're looking for a hill with a high amount of celestial spirit magic. Can you, by any chance, feel where it is?" Asked Lucy. Argent looked at her.

"But then why do you want to go there?"

"To help a friend." At that response, Argent raised his sterling eyebrow.

"... I'll try," started Argent. Argent closed his eyes and concentrated. He pointed towards the right. "It's this way."

Erza, however, was slightly suspicious at Argent's answer. There were some hesitant words in his answer, and when Lucy explained why they needed to go to the hill, he looked as if he remembered something. Nevertheless, she shrugged it off.

They went to the direction where Argent pointed and walked. Argent looked at them pitifully, then walked away towards the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, again this chapter was a tad late. But hey, at least it's three thousand words this time!
> 
> So. I will try and aim to write the next chapter by the next three weeks, two weeks if possible. But unfortunately, I tried to do that with this chapter, and... Yeah. Good thing next month is August.
> 
> Anyway, for some people who are confused on Argent's abilities of being able to shape shift, it's because since he is made of mercury the fluidity allows him to be able to change shape. He can change into anything, though if he tries to expand his mass, it will use up a lot of ethernano.
> 
> Argent is actually French for silver, which is why that is his name. Of course, I could have named him Mercure, but then I decided that I liked Argent more.
> 
> Thank goodness I edited this chapter, because otherwise the part where Erza reappears into the normal dimension would have been played out twice. XD


	16. Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through their journey, Natsu asks a question. The gang never realised about the truth of Leo's past.

They have been walking for a while in the direction Argent has given them. So far though, there had been no signs of Iris Hill anywhere, just more and more identical hills. Virgo had also commented that the celestial magic levels aren't quite as high either. It seemed like that they were getting nowhere.

"Aw come on! There's still no signs of the hill anywhere!" Natsu complained. Leo raised his eyebrow. After all, they haven't really been walking for too long.

"Human-"

"It's Natsu!" He replied in an annoyed tone. "Why do you keep on calling me human anyway? I don't call you 'celestial spirit' and things like that all the time, do I?" Leo's eye twitched.

"Alright, Natsu," he started. "We've only been walking for a short while. We're probably going to reach Iris Hill soon."

"Soon? How soon then?"

"Well-" Leo halted his words as soon as he came across a realisation. Argent has never told them how far to go, he just told them to go into a certain direction. "... I don't know. Argent never told us anyway." A look of realisation came over Natsu's face.

"Oh. Right," Natsu casually replied as he placed his arms to the back of his head. The lion spirit rolled his eyes. A thought came to Natsu's mind about the grappling mangroves.

"Hey, ya know... 'Bout the one time Regulus thing," he started. "What did'ya mean by it being a one time thing when we were fighting the clingy trees?" When Leo heard the question he halted completely.

"Huh?" They stopped as well.

"I... Can't use Regulus... Anymore. It was something from will power," he started calmly as he looked down.

"Leo, you don't have to explain it," Virgo said as she went by his side. She inhaled a breath and told them: "Leo won't be answering that question."

Won't be answering the question?

"Why is that?" Charlés asked as she crossed her snowy arms.

"It's classified."

"Classified? Why is it classified?"

"Reasons!" At that point they decided to stop bombarding the celestial spirits with questions. It was clear that the reason was serious and personal.

"... Let's go then," Erza said as they walked ahead. All except Leo.

"Wait." They all stopped. Leo's hazel eyes looked towards the ground before he sighed. "Virgo. You can tell them why." The two celestial spirits widened their eyes as they gasped.

"Are... Are you sure?" Virgo asked as uncertainty laced every word.

"Yes. I am sure." There was confidence in his words, but at the same time there was still a hint of uncertainty. All was quiet when Virgo walked in front of him.

"It was... It was..." Virgo looked away. She furrowed her eyebrows as if she was thinking. To calm her nerves down, Virgo took in a deep breath.

"Calartemis took away half of Leo's soul."

"... What?"

"He... tried to win a fight which would have promised us celestial spirits freedom from Calartemis. But he lost." All was said when Virgo was looking down.

"As punishment Calartemis took away half of Leo's soul, one of the worst type of punishments Calartemis could give." Though she tried to make the words as expression neutral as possible, they could still tell the deep melancholy on which the words are build on like the foundations of a building.

"When he took half his soul, he also took away half his power. The light side, that is. Dark Regulus was all he was left with." All was silent.

"... Why half his soul instead of his whole soul?" Gray asked finally.

"... The celestial spirits don't know either," confessed Aquarius. She had a look of melancholy on her face. Nevertheless, the water bearer took a deep breath and explained. "To surrender a soul... That itself makes a person die a coward. But to give out half... They would still be alive. And the shame..." Aquarius drooped down as she said those words. At those words, they felt a new sense of respect for Leo.

It was strange to see a bubbly celestial spirit like Aquarius get so sad and serious. Wendy remembers how joyful she was during the fight.

"Cheer up, Aquarius," Wendy encouraged. In response Aquarius caught her gaze. She looked away as she tried to find the correct words. "It's... Umm... Not good to sulk all the time..." Unfortunately, other than those words, she didn't know what words to use to cheer Aquarius up without accidentally deepening the matter. After all, how can she cheer up somebody who has had their friend suffer from half their soul being taken away?

Aquarius smiled a bit from Wendy's effort of attempting to cheer her up. "... Thank you," she said quietly. The water bearer took a deep breath. And then she smiled.

"But. The past is in the past and the present's now, right?" She asked cheerily. It surprised them over the blue haired spirit's fast change of attitudes.

"The good thing is that at least Leo tried for his teammates. Right Leo?" Aquarius asked. Leo looked at her, slightly surprised. He looked away and touched his chin with his thumb and index finger as he looked down.

"... That's right," he declared.

"But then back then at the forest when Feng-" Lucy started.

"Feng was making a deal. If we surrender, Aquarius would not be harmed," Leo explained. Flashbacks of Feng holding Aquarius ransom recovered in Lucy's mind. She shook her head to try and get the memory out of her head.

"Who's Feng?" Happy asked, curious.

"An ally of Calartemis," she replied with disgust in her words.

Leo walked ahead of the others. Lucy noticed and walked ahead of Leo.

"Loke wait!" Leo rolled his eyes at the name but he said nothing about it.

"Yes, what is it?" He asked. At that point Lucy hesitated.

"You... Fought for your friends' freedom even when it could have broken celestial spirit law?" Leo raised his brow at the question but nodded.

"That's... Very selfless and loyal of you," Lucy admitted truthfully. "But I'm not saying that it's good to-" The blonde hesitated as she got to that point. Leo however appreciated her acknowledgment.

"... Thanks," was all he said. She smiled back in response.

Her smile. It was like the beautiful radiance of the sun. Quickly he dismissed that thought. He never really liked women too much anyway. Instead he focused on something else.

As they kept on moving forward, he thought to himself. The urge to tell the truth was extremely strong just then, in fact, it was ready to burst out of him. It made him feel guilty to lie, but at the same time, deep inside he felt slightly relieved that they do not know.

They continued to walk towards the direction of Iris Hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's early this month! Yay! But the plot's sort of... All over the place. I think that there was some dialogue that I could've fixed up as well.
> 
> So there you have it. Leo had given half his soul to Calartemis. That was why his key was glowing and why Calartemis can control him.
> 
> I believe that Dark Regulus is the result of negative emotions, as opposed to the positive emotions of Regulus.


	17. Other direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through the journey, they meet Arachnen. What are Arachnen's intentions truly?

Happy sighed as he gently flew. Several hours of walking (and flying) had gone by and there was still no big sign of celestial spirit magic. Still no sign of Iris Hill. Bored, he began to look around. At last, he asked Virgo:

"Hey, err, we've been walking for a while, or, you know, flying in my case, but just where is that hill?" He asked to the celestial spirits. He wondered if they could even tell the hill apart from the other ones. That, however, doesn't really seem to be the case.

The fuscia haired spirit paused as she heard those words. True... If they've been walking for so long, then how come the level of celestial spirit magic hasn't risen-

Suddenly she felt a stinging pain in her right arm's wound. The maiden spirit inhaled sharply when she felt it. It was like a throbbing pain where it felt like acid was burning within, melting and melting away the flesh.

Virgo winced a bit as she collapsed onto her knees. The pain. It's just simply growing stronger and stronger. The others all paused when they heard Virgo and looked back to see what was the matter. Lucy widened her eyes when she saw Virgo in pain.

"Virgo! What's-" the celestial spirit mage halted her question when she immediately saw where the source of Virgo's pain came from. The wound from Arachnen. It was still there...? But why was it only affecting her now?

"What's happening?" Gray asked.

"Her wound! The venom is causing her to be in pain!"

"Ssso... Greetingsss... I haven't ssseen the ressst of you before..." Said a scratchy, harsh whisper. Immediately they all whipped their had around to the front to be greeted by the sight of a thin, scrawny man holding two fang like daggers.

"Arachnen!" Lucy and the celestial spirits snarled.

"Who is he?" Happy asked cautiously and quietly.

"Another ally of Calartemis," Lucy answered before she activated her whip, weary of a sudden attack. "Whatever great pain you're making Virgo have, stop it now!" It didn't need an expert to know for the others that Arachnen was the one who caused the wound. In response Arachnen merely glanced towards Virgo, who was still holding her arm.

"Hm. Though that ssseemsss like a ssside effect," he merely noted. Lucy cringed at how Arachnen said it. By the way he said it it was like just acknowledging that a mere insect had been wounded rather than a person in pain.

What Lucy didn't expect is that Arachnen walked forward, knelt down by Virgo and concentrated his magic onto the wound.

"Huh?"

Some of the black poison slowly risen out of Virgo's wound and back into the fang like daggers. Why is he doing that? Virgo's widened eyes as she looked at her wound was the indication that the wound no longer hurt. The maiden spirit stood up as Arachnen walked back.

Silence.

"... What do you want, Arachnen?" Lucy asked which broke the silence. Just what was Arachnen doing healing Virgo? Isn't he the enemy? The spider man's black eyes spun around to face Lucy's brown ones.

"Hmm, you know, jussst to tell you all that thisss," he pointed towards the direction in which they were going, "isss the wrong direction."

The wrong direction...? So they had been going to the wrong direction...? But how can they actually be sure?

"Well how can we be sure that you're not lying?" Natsu stated. Arachnen chuckled.

"If I am lying... Then why am I here?" That is a good point.

Hang on. If he is here and he is an ally of Calartemis, does that mean Calartemis knows where they are?

"Lisssten. I myssself, I want to dessstroy that bassstard," he said as his fist gripped into a tight fist. Destroy? Isn't he an ally?

"He took sssomething from me." Something? So what is that something?

"What do you mean by that?" Leo asked. Arachnen glanced at the lion spirit.

"It'sss persssonal." When he said that, they all knew what he meant. Perhaps something happened to him that is linked towards Calartemis in some way, for example, maybe Calartemis killed someone dear to Arachnen.

Arachnen stuck out a hand.

"I want to join your ssside," he reasoned sincerely. "That sssilver man isss a minion of Calartemisss. He wanted to make you avoid Iris Hill." Argent?

"But why is that?"

"Hm. Let'sss jussst sssay isss doing so becaussse Irisss Hill is the place of Calartemisss' magic. But. If we dessstroy that hill, then we will kill Calartemisss once and for all!"

Destroy the hill? Already that seemed to be a bad choice. After all, the hill was their only way home and along with that, there's also Ophiuchus.

"Kill Calartemis? How is destroying Iris Hill going to kill him?" Natsu asked instead. Arachnen raised an eyebrow as he stroked his chin with his rough, dirt covered fingers.

"... Ever wondered why Irisss Hill is named that?" He said.

"Err... No."

"The irisss flower." The iris flower?

"Irisss Hill isss named after the irisss flowersss, and in mythology, irisss flowersss represssent the link between heaven and earth," he started. At those words, Erza was suspicious.

Natsu thought. Heaven... Earth... Calartemis... God magic...

"Oh so if we destroy the hill then Calartemis' magic will be gone!?" Natsu shouted out.

"Exactly, and ssso if it'sss gone Calartemisss will die. And only then will I get my revenge..." To kill off Calartemis completely? That may be sort of pushing it. But how will destroying Iris Hill going to kill him anyway?

"Why will he die if we destroy Iris Hill?"

"Calartemis' immortality is dependent on his magic," Aquarius noted. "So if Calartemis's magic is gone, then so will his immortality!"

Erza, however, was hesitant over Arachnen's true intentions. It was strange that he was on Calartemis' side, but now he wants to be on theirs. And on top of that there is the thing with Iris Hill's etymology.

"Why were you an ally of Calartemis?" She asked. No flinch from Arachnen. Hm.

"It'sss ssso I can get clossse to him and it will make the job of killing that son of a bitch easssier..." No sign of remorse, no sign of hesitation. Deep inside, however, Erza sensed that this is a lie.

"Hey, Leo," Erza started. Leo turned his back towards Arachnen and started to talk to her quietly.

"He's lying. He's definitely lying," Leo said.

"Is it the Iris Hill etymology thing?" She asked. He nodded.

"When Ophiuchus was imprisoned... She was supposed to be imprisoned in another plain hill. But instead by mistake she was imprisoned at Iris Hill because through Iris Hill she could've easily returned. And to counter that, celestial spirit king reinforced several obstacles between Ophiuchus' spirit and the portals. I saw it..."

That confirms it. What Arachnen is doing is all planned. She does not know the reasons why he was doing so, but he may be leading them into a trap of some kind.

"Why do you actually want to destroy Iris Hill?" She asked as she turned around towards Arachnen.

"Asss I sssaid, I need to go there so that Calartemisss will be no more... All for vengeance..."

"Vengeance for who?" Erza asked as she stared at him sternly and walked up to him. Arachnen's slouching, crooked stature allowed Erza to tower over him.

"Well it'sss for many people... My whole family in fact... They were all killed by Calartemisss."

All killed by Calartemis... Huh...

It was only then did Erza see that Arachnen was looking around even more. In fact, all the words seem to be too casual for something that must've meant a lot to him.

"What is your actual objective?"

"A-asss I sssaid earlier, err... For my-" at that point Erza walked away. No point in confronting with a person who is clearly lying.

"Let's go," she said as she walked towards the direction of where the hill should be. However at that point she paused.

What was Calartemis' objective? Why does he want them to destroy Iris Hill if Ophiuchus is there? Or was Arachnen lying about that as well? But if that's the case, then why was he giving them this information?

She spun her eyes towards him.

"Where is the actual direction of Iris Hill?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy... I know. A heck load of plotholes. T_T And also a whole month's wait. TT_TT I think I made a couple of errors though.


	18. Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Natsu and the celestial spirits go back to go to the proper path towards Iris Hill and fight Argent. However the celestial spirits keep on getting flashbacks...

In the end they decided that Arachnen shall not go with them.

They figured out that Arachnen was lying after all and that they did not need to bring him. Otherwise, they all left him and walked back towards the original direction. 

There was still the issue of Argent that needed to be solved. Is he really on Calartemis' side, or was it something else influencing him? Very soon they saw a glimpse of mercury admist the asphalt hills. It was Argent. 

"Argent!" Natsu ran faster towards Argent just as he called to him. Argent froze a before he turned around, thunderstruck from their arrival. 

"You- but-"

"Why the hell did you lie about the hill?" Argent’s golden orb eyes looked around as if he was looking for an excuse. In the end he gave in.

"You- you can't go to the hill! You just can’t!" His uneasy stature gave way that he was desperate. Why was he desperate? Was it that there was something at the hill?

"Whatever, we're gonna go there anyway," Natsu said as he walked past Argent. 

“Wait.” A silver barrier stopped Natsu in his steps. 

"Huh?" He looked towards where the silver barrier came from. Natsu saw that it was Argent’s arm which prevented him from walking. 

"Don’t. _Pass_." Argent was serious and angry unlike the previous instances. They could see that his golden eyes were flamed with fury, though through what, they do not know. Leo stepped forward. 

"We need to go there as well!" Leo objected. 

"Look, you do not know what is at stake if you do go there,” he lectured. 

"Then what is the risk of going to Iris Hill?" Virgo shot back. 

"You don't understand, you just don't!" He yelled back as he hit the three at their stomach. 

Virgo was momentarily distracted from the impact’s pain when a glimpse of a memory surfaced. 

Don't understand... 

_"Human, you do not understand!"_

A fragment from a dream a while ago.

And then she, along with Leo and Natsu, were all smashed into another hill. 

“What is it that we don’t understand!?” This time flames erupted from Natsu’s hands as he rushed forward to strike Argent. 

Wendy widened her eyes. 

“Natsu, DON’T!”

“Iron fist of the fire dragon!” 

Smoke erupted as soon as Natsu made contact. They both cringed as more smoke spewed out. 

And then Natsu fainted. 

“Natsu!” The sky dragon slayer rushed by Natsu’s side. Mercury’s highly toxic. Natsu could _die_. 

First she needed to clear the area of the grey mercury fumes. 

“Purify!” The fumes turned into fresh, clean air. Wendy kneeled down and cast her healing spell onto Natsu.

Meanwhile, Argent saw an easy target. He stretched out his leg and targeted Wendy, ready to strike hard.

"Oh no you don't!" Gray grabbed Argent by the leg as cold vapours escaped from his grip. Ice crawled up of Argent's leg, enough just to immobilise it. 

"What do you mean we won't understand?" Argent paused. 

"... It is something that none of you will not understand. You just won't!" The mercury of Argent's leg leaked out of its ice case and reformed again to sock Gray just under his jaw. 

"Gray!" Wendy called out. 

Said mage flew back from the impact and collided into a hill. 

This was going nowhere, Leo thought. 

However something about Argent reminded Leo of a memory. 

_"There must be something we can do!"_

_"Human, you will never understand!"_

"Leo! Duck!" Lucy yelled. 

That voice.

Leo heard a sound of a whoosh charging straight towards him. He whipped his head around to see a mercury fist heading towards his way, but he was too late.

Like Gray the sheer impact made him collide painfully into another hill. The sound of rock crumbling around him deafened the sound of the others calling his name. 

"Crap..." He muttered. There's just no way to defeat Argent; as soon as he's wounded he can re-heal. What weakness does he have?

He watched as the others all striked Argent with all their might. No matter how much they do, he seems to re-heal straight away. 

What struck Leo as he observed was that Argent can still get injured. Leo could see that Argent was clearly not trained for fighting through his stiffness in his attacks and he could see that his stamina was short. Already Argent seemed to be tired as he panted straight after deflecting those attacks. 

“Everybody! Keep on striking! “ Leo yelled. “Sooner or later he’s going to run out of stamina!” 

Everyone kept on striking at Argent. 

“Fleuve d’etoile!” 

“Ice make: Hammer!” 

“Wing slash of the wind dragon!” 

“Demon sakura blade!” 

“Tidal wave!” 

Slowly, attack by attack, Argent started to tire out and stagger. 

Just one more attack and he’ll be knocked out. All the others panted as soon as they finished attacking. They were all spent and tired. However Argent saw another target. 

Aquarius. 

There she stood, away from the rest of them. 

Argent charged towards the unsuspecting water bearer and tried to knock her out. 

Oh no he don’t! 

Black flames engulfed Leo’s fists. “Iron hammer of Darkness!” He strided forward towards Argent just as Argent noticed him. 

“Dark Regulus?” Erza thought that the power only resided with the eclipse Leo from their timeline. Clearly she was wrong. 

“Gah!” 

_“Gah!”_

_“Happy!”_

Argent was knocked out from the impact. But Leo was frozen in time as the vision came back towards him. He remembered a part of this in the strange dream, but this time it was extended. Not only that, but those voices sounded familiar.

“Hey... Loke. What are you blanking out for?” Gray asked. The spirit in question snapped back into reality. 

“Natsu.” 

“Huh?” Just why was Leo bringing up Natsu? 

“I’ve met him before.” A strong emotion of disbelief still saturated Leo’s words. Even he cannot believe himself. They’re all from the future! Why does he have memories of them? 

“Met?” Virgo asked. Met… met… if Leo met them, then does that mean the dream was real? 

A while ago the celestial spirits all had a peculiar dream, though they can only remember mere fragments of it. If Virgo remembered correctly, Lucy’s voice was familiar. 

“Virgo?” Aquarius asked. 

“Yes?” 

“What is Virgo and Leo thinking about?” Virgo looked around. Maybe she can tell her and see if she’s experienced the same thing also. 

“We’ve got flashbacks from the ‘dream’.” 

“Yeah, and some of them were like the scenes, except longer.” 

“The dream?” Aquarius tilted her head towards the side. “Oh yeah! Aquarius remembers now! Not much though..." 

“... Dream?” Erza questioned. The three spirits spun their eyes around to face the redhead. 

“... should we tell them?” Virgo whispered to Leo. 

“Yeah.” Virgo took a deep breath after she faced them all. This was going to be it. 

“We… we got flashbacks of a dream and, some of you were…” She had only just then realised how it must’ve sound. A conversation over a dream would’ve been a bit silly. 

“... All right. So… what was the dream about?” Erza was curious. This time Aquarius stepped in. 

“The celestial spirits were, well… fighting and there was something about freedom and…” All of Team Natsu were shocked by the statement. So the past spirits know and remember?! But how did they get into the future? 

“Wait, so you remember after all?!” Happy yelled. The celestial spirits nodded in response. 

“How can that be?! I mean, sure the spirits in our timeline turned a bit gaga, but you all were there?!” It was hard to take it in. 

“The celestial spirits don’t know,” Aquarius truthfully replied. “They just got flashes of it and poof! It’s are gone.” Charlés decided to clarify the whole thing. 

“So do you all remember about the celestial globe and Liberum?” 

“Celestial globe? Liberum?” By Leo’s confused expression they clearly saw that he had no idea. Wendy decided to try her luck with Aquarius. 

She looked at Natsu. He was still unconscious, but she had done all she can currently. Wendy walked over towards Aquarius. 

“Aquarius, do you remember about the, well, 'fight' we had?” Wendy could’ve further specify it by saying amusement parks, but she decided not to in case Aquarius doesn’t remember, Aquarius faced Wendy while her eyes clearly showed no recollection of such event. 

“A fight?” Wendy looked down, discouraged. No recollection? Huh… 

“Oh wait.” Wendy looked up. Aquarius had a brief flash of a memory. It was a memory of her and Wendy at some sort of place… 

“Ah no… the memory’s gone…” Wendy looked down again. “Wendy? Is something wrong?” 

“Huh? No, it’s just… something doesn’t really add up…” if the eclipsed celestial spirits are really the celestial spirits in the past, and if they briefly remember about the rebellion, then were they sent forward in time somehow? 

“We’ll figure it out what’s going on,” Charlés said confidently. Virgo turned her head towards one direction. 

“The hill is definitely this way.” The concentration of celestial spirit magic was strong. 

Erza picked up Natsu and walked towards the direction. "Let's go then," Erza said as they continued towards the now open direction of Iris Hill. 

She hoped that Natsu can wake up soon. Erza can still feel a faint breath over her shoulder and she knew that Wendy had done her job, so the best they can do now is to wait. 

They all walked towards the direction of what was certainly the direction of Iris Hill. 

How funny. Very soon this will all be over. The mages will go back to their proper time period, the celestial spirits will go to Iris Hill and have this whole drama over and done with… 

Leo knew that now would be a time to talk to Lucy about their first meeting. Perhaps not perfect, but he wanted to apologise anyway. Better now than never. He swallowed in his pride as he walked over to Lucy. 

“Hey,” Leo said, just loud enough to not be a whisper. 

“Yeah?” Lucy answered as she looked over towards him. 

“Back when we first met… I… want to say I’m… sorry? Look, it’s just that I didn’t really like people at first, but now…Yeah. So I just want to say sorry for, well, my assholeness that... happened.” He knew that he could’ve worded it better, but this was good for now. Lucy was surprised. 

“... Apology accepted,” she replied. A smile appeared on Lucy’s face. 

Leo was further surprised over the fact that Lucy accepted his apology. He expected that she would be more dissent towards his apology. 

_"I'm sorry. Well, about today, when I called you a coward."_

But again… she apologised as well on the other night. After Lucy made the accusations she apologised straight after. Must have felt embarrassing as well. 

He smiled back. 

That is, until he remembered what will happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Today is the one year anniversary of TOtP.
> 
> Wow this year had passed by quickly! Thank you to all of my readers who helped me get this far!
> 
> I estimate that there’s still possibly 10 chapters left until this story ends so stay tuned!


	19. Iris Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, they had arrived at Iris Hill. Leo however was thinking about something else.

It was a slow process of checking celestial spirit energy within the hills. In order to do so Virgo needed to concentrate and feel if there was much celestial spirit energy within the rock. No luck so far, however.

But while they were all focusing on finding Iris Hill, Leo was thinking about something else.

For the rest of the journey Leo wrestled over the plan of telling them the truth or not.

If he tells the truth, he would be shunned though they would not get harmed. But if he keeps silent…

The consequences could be disastrous.

Maybe he should stay silent. For now that is. Maybe he can do so at the right time and the right place, but right now doesn't really seem to be one.

Yet at the same time he felt like he could tell the truth, but couldn't.

And if he does tell the truth, then he himself would be subject to shame from the Zodiacs and pain from Calartemis.

Keeping quiet to keep a secret that would benefit himself? Is he selfish? But as long as he never does it again… then he could forget it and act if it has never happened.

The more he thought about whether or not to tell, the more he realised that it was a good time now.

But then-

"Is Leo alright?" He heard Aquarius ask. "He seems to be thinking about something."

"Yes I'm alright," Leo confirmed.

"Are you thinking about something?" the ice wizard named Gray asked. Leo inhaled through gritted teeth.

"About when we're gonna arrive at Iris Hill."

"Ah." That left the problem. A half lie, and also a half truth. It's still a truth.

Should he tell the actual truth now? Maybe he shouldn't; ignorance is a bliss after all, but if they don't know about the actual truth, then perhaps ignorance would turn to truth.

But was painting over with a lie better than revealing the heinous truth? Is it better to lie?

Probably not.

But if he does tell them the truth, then Calartemis would show Aquarius, Aries and Virgo their true memories of what happened that day.

What a sick bastard. What a cruel, sadistic, sick bastard. All Calartemis wanted was seeing pain and suffering.

But again. It's Lucy who Calartemis wanted...

"Lucy."

"Hm?"

"I need to tell-" he paused his words when Virgo paused at a hill.

* * *

 

The hill was like any other hill. However Virgo could feel a current of celestial spirit energy beneath the rock.

Virgo widened her eyes as she felt excitement inside her.

They were at Iris Hill.

She double checked the celestial magic energy just to be sure and sure enough, it was radiating from the very rock.

"We're here!" She yelled. Some of the others turned towards her direction. Were they really at Iris Hill?

It wasn't until Charlés pointed something out that made them realise something about Iris Hill.

"How do we get in?" Virgo's excitement died down.

"Yeah… That is a good question." Lucy turned towards Natsu, who was still lying on Erza's back, unconscious.

"Hey Wendy, when do you think that Natsu will be awake?" Lucy asked. Said girl looked towards her.

"I don't know… I've healed his lungs now so it has to take an effect. Probably an hour or two perhaps?"

"Hm." Happy looked over to Natsu. "Natsu… please wake up soon."

Through Happy's affection towards Natsu, he could tell that they are dear friends. Once he thought that celestial spirits are supposed to be the only ones who could feel affection. But now he can scoff at that past thought.

He looked over to the side as he replayed that flashback.

_"Argh!"_

_"Happy!"_

The flashback was still strange to him; it felt like that it was from a dream, but now he knew that it was certainly from a memory. He knew that there was a bigger picture to the whole thing, what with the celestial globe and whatnot.

But anyway, that would need to be put on hold for now.

There was a moan that came from Erza's shoulder.

They all turned around in response. Erza placed Natsu down on the ground.

"Ugh…" Natsu opened his eyes and looked around.

"Natsu! You're awake!" Wendy yelled.

"What happened?" he groggily asked.

"You fainted from the mercury smoke."

"Geez…" He sat up. "At this rate I'm gonna be put in a coma!" Natsu joked. Lucy was going to add in that he almost died, but she decided to ignore that fact for now; Natsu's well, and that's enough.

"Right, so how far are we from Iris hill?" He asked to no one in particular as he stood up.

"We're here actually," Happy pointed out.

"... Huh? Really?" All this time and they're finally here!

"Aye!" Natsu widened his eyes.

Finally! They could all go back home!

"So is that it? Do we need to err… guard the hill or something?"

"Aquarius' is not too sure about that," Aquarius piped up from behind. "She thinks that the celestial spirit king imprisoned Ophiuchus in another dimension." Natsu turned around towards Aquarius. Dimension?

"Wait, so is it like an alternate world?" Like Edolas, perhaps?

"Hm, about," Virgo continued. "Dimensions are more like alternate realities however. Though it'd probably be rather hard to find her."

"How come?"

"We do know that Iris Hill has a lot of portals." Natsu looked towards Iris Hill. Though he could feel the celestial spirit magic practically radiating from the rock, it still looked like a normal hill.

"But… where are the portals?" Now it was Virgo's turn to be confused.

"Well…" She looked back towards the top of the hill. There were supposed to be portals on the hill but there was no portals visible on top.

"Maybe we should look around to see if there's anything that might activate it." They all nodded towards each other. That seemed to be a reasonable idea.

They all looked around the hill to try and find any clue of how to get in.

"Hey, there's an eye shape here!" Wendy called.

"Hm?" Erza, Lucy and Leo went over towards Wendy to investigate. There was indeed an eye shape like Wendy described, but it was like as if it was carved smoothly into the rock by someone else- too smooth to be carved from natural means.

The eye was the simple shape of a closed eye. What did it mean?

"Do you think that it's some sort of hidden spell?"

"Probably."

"How do we think we deactivate it?" Happy asked. Leo thought for a while.

"We… could try channelling our celestial spirit magic into the hill." "

Yeah, let's try it," the two celestial spirits agreed. The three celestial places their right palm around the symbol. For a few seconds all was calm.

Miraculously, it worked, as with a flash of light, they disappeared.

* * *

It was when they realised that the portals were not on top of Iris Hill, but _within_ Iris Hill.

The inside of Iris Hill was dark all right, but it was also expansive. Much, much more expansive than what they originally thought it would be. There were multiple portals floating in the space like fluorescent discs hanging from the ceiling. Actually, they looked more like they're hanging from the inside walls of a sphere, and that they were in the centre of that sphere. Though they didn't crowd up every single space, despite their wide area, there were still dark space in between the portals.

How many portals were there? Hundreds? Thousands? They were not too sure. To think that a hill the size of an average cottage would be this expansive on the inside, it would be hard to think that there would be this much portals anyway.

Speaking of which, all the portals look almost identical like the hills, much to their dismay.

"So… are we just gonna find the right portal again?" Gray asked.

"Yeah…"

"... Let's go." Gray walked towards one of the portals. Or at least he tried to.

It was only then when he realised that they were suspended midair like as if they were in water. His sleeves were floating and so were some strands of his hair.

Maybe they could try to swim towards-

His thought was cut off short when he realised that he couldn't breathe. When he looked around there was nothing but water everywhere.

He was at the bottom of the ocean.

No no, he needs to get back, he needs to get back!

And then he was back in the centre of Iris Hill, wet and shaking but still fine. It was as if nothing had happened, sans the fact that he was drenched in sea water.

"Hm? Hey Gray, what happened?" Wendy asked. It was only then when Gray realised that there were purple auras that all surrounded them all.

"I… think I just got into an ocean dimension."

"What?"

"This aura, it's allowing us to travel to different dimensions!"

"Wait, so we just have to think of something to get to that dimension?"

"I guess." That meant that they could just think of something and they could go to a dimension that related to that thing. They all thought of Ophiuchus immediately.

More blinding light of various colours flashed everywhere.

And they fell down onto a cold, hard floor.

One by one, they got up and rubbed their heads.

"Ugh…" Natsu raised an eyebrow when he looked ahead. Ahead was a narrow corridor.

"Are we in a maze of some sort?" It was then when he realised that celestial spirit energy was flowing everywhere. Does this meant that Ophiuchus was somewhere here?

"Hey. It actually worked!" Natsu exclaimed. He stood up. Natsu could feel one point in particular where there was an extremely strong concentration of celestial spirit magic somewhere around the maze.

"Let's go! Ophiuchus is here somewhere!" He said as he ran forward around the entrance.

"Natsu! Wait!" Gray yelled before he followed him as well as the rest of the group.

"So what were you about to tell me again?" Lucy asked towards Leo as they walked.

"O-oh…" He had to make something up, and fast. "I was going to tell you… I'll miss you when you and your friends go back."

It was not exactly a lie, but at the same time it still was.

"Huh…" She smiled. "Me too, I… guess."

"Hm?" If she goes back to the future, wouldn't she still be with the future him?

"Oh, uh… it's just… I guess I'll miss the you now. I mean, you two are different and…"

"... ah."

As they all explored the labyrinth, Leo was still musing about the lie.

Too late now, he thought. This had gone too far through; they're already at Iris Hill.

But even if it meant that he had to risk getting corrupted by Dark Regulus, he will have to use the power to fight against Calartemis. Maybe he can make this whole thing right and if they do managed to fend off Calartemis, protect Ophiuchus' secret, then perhaps everything would become normal again.

Besides, as long as his friends won't know the truth of the past, they won't blame him.

Hopefully this plan will work.

Hopefully...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like that I've made Leo a bit OOC so far. Actually it's sort of getting a bit confusing now.


	20. Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The maze was constanty shifting, but out of luck, they had arrived at the place of what could be Ophiuchus' hiding.

It was not easy to navigate through the maze.

Every wall, every corner were practical mirrors; a copy of the wall and corner, the previous wall and corner, the previous wall and corner… It had become too confusing.

At least the asphalt hills had more freedom. If they were stuck, they could climb upon a hill and try see where they should go next. Here, they were stuck at one level. But that was not the ultimate issue; they could not even see their hands in the maze's darkness, and it seemed to become darker the more they stayed, up to the point where it was lighter when they closed their eyes. Of course Natsu tried to light a fire, but it seemed that no magic can work in the maze. Even the purple aura around them had disappeared.

"Perhaps it's the concentration of celestial spirit magic," Lucy thought. In the maze, the celestial spirit magic made her feel… alive, yet it was intoxicating as well; it gave her more energy, but too much and she could faint.

She asked Leo if he would light a light, since he's a celestial spirit and the magic would hopefully give him more energy, but he was stubborn and wanted to conserve the energy for later.

Moreover, the maze seemed to be constantly shifting, which was bad news since the walls and corners were smooth like marble floor tiles. Even though there were the constant frustration of having to cover a lot of land, suddenly navigating the hills did not sound as bad. All they could do was grope around the place and hope for something which leads them to Ophiuchus.

Back in the present, they were still groping around the maze's smooth, polished walls. Natsu lead their party, as he had picked up Ophiuchus' faint scent, though that was diluted due to the celestial spirit magic.

"Hey guys, I think we've been to this corner before," Natsu called out as he felt a wall corner. The wall corner was near blade sharp, but there was a slight chip in it. The walls were smooth and polished, like marble tiles, so chips in the corners were perhaps the only markings of where they were at.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I mean, so far this is the only wall with a chip in it." He felt the chip again just to be sure. "Oh wait, this is a different one." This chip had more of a triangle shape, unlike the more rounded shape from earlier.

His thoughts were disturbed when the ground started to shake.

The maze was going to shift again.

"Watch out!" They all moved to the centre as they felt gravity change and the area rumble. The area rumbled and rumbled… and it stopped.

They all fell down however, because the ground beneath them rotated into a wall.

Natsu stood up and walked towards the wall corner. The chip was gone.

"Crap."

\---

Calartemis rolled his eyes when he saw that the party was nowhere near the trap. It was taking forever. He clicked and a watch fell onto his palmin which he turned and turned around the (side thingy). The people in the vision blurred as they wizzed around the maze, until their closeness to the location made Calartemis stop.

"Finally." They were almost there. Just a wall apart.

"Go right." He knew that his command won't do anything, though it may move that lion spirit. But he didn't want to do that; it would cause suspicion. He just said it for the sake of it.

They went left. Farther and farther away.

His fist tightened as he banged it onto the throne and growled. What were they? Idiots? Didn't that fire one have a bloodhound's nose? It was right there!

"Go. _Right_." He flicked the figures on the vision to the path towards the place. On cue, the tiny figures flew across the vision towards the place until their heads collided to the wall.

Now he could be at peace.

\---

Something pushed them, definitely.

Otherwise, just why was some sort of wind zooming them through the darkness?!

Leo could see something up front. Being the lion spirit, his eyes were better at seeing in the dark than other people's as long as there was some kind of faint light source, even a dying ember would suffice. And he could see a bright, purple speck amidst the darkness, which grew into two as they went closer and closer. It was embedded in a wall, as around it, there was a carving of a snake.

Carving of a snake.

That was it! That was the place where Ophiuchus was!

They needed to stop somehow. He knew that Wendy cannot do it, because of the concentration of magic.

Magic.

What kind of magic was carrying them? It was some kind of wind magic.

Maybe he could use Dark Regulus to mirror it. In the maze, magic cannot be used, but this was clearly wind magic, and powerful, too. Mirroring it would be as effective as a spell by an actual wind mage.

He concentrated on the magic as a magic circle glowed beneath him. Wind sucked into his fist, and when he was sure that there was enough power, he lunged his fist forward, creating wind.

The force of the wind cushioned their collision and made them stop completely.

And then they fell down upon the cold floor.

"Ugh…" Lucy sat up and rubbed a growing bump on her head. Their heads still collided to the wall, though thankfully, it was more like being hit by a hardcover book than being crashed by a truck.

But then she realised something.

"Loke, how did you do that?"

"Dark Regulus. It's a bit of a mirroring magic," he replied.

"Was that how you copied my spells?" Natsu asked.

"... Yes."

Of course, he cannot remember it, but it had happened.

He looked down at his fist, the residues of the spell slipping away. Dark Regulus was a strange sensation. It was this feeling of wanting more and more magic, and when you do, it was euphoria, but then it was gone. Never enough.

It was toxic. Poisoning. But addicting. Somewhat like strong alcoholic shots. Little amounts were not too harmful, but too much and you would get too drunk in it, drowning you in the sea of addiction, unable to swim back to the surface.

Leo looked around, but it was dark. Completely dark.

The wall was gone.

The maze had shifted again.

Several hours of searching and this was the result? A dead end?

He took a deep breath in. Getting frustrated would not help.

"Let's go." And he walked away from the dead end, footsteps echoing throughout the hall, in which the rest of them followed.

\---

Calartemis screamed and banged his fist repeatedly onto the stone wall. They were so close!

So _close!_

A cracking sound echoed throughout the entire hall. Whether it was from the bones in his hand snapping or the sound of the wall crumbling, he did not care.

Stupid maze. Stupid mortals. Stupid spirits.

His hand was definitely broken, but he didn't stop.

That is, until somebody grabbed hold of his wrist and stopped it completely.

He looked around, and he saw Ko.

By now he could feel just how much pain was in his hand.

Ko inspected the wound before she placed her hand over it. Orange light bathed his hand, and it was healed.

He raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing.

It was good to have someone to be with him, whatever the reason may be.

"What was it?" She asked in a patient tone.

"Much not…"

\---

Lucy was one of the last to follow Leo from the wall. The wall was right there, and they were so close...

"Luce?" She heard Natsu say. "Let's go."

"Ah. Right."

As she followed the footsteps, she thought about the wind magic. Could it be that someone was watching them?

But from the corner of her eye, she saw a glow.

It had the same shade as the wall's glow. Could it be?

When she turned her head back, she almost gasped.

For she saw that the wall indeed contained the two bright sparks.

For whatever reason, the wall had appeared. She could see that the two sparks were the eyes of a snake's shape carved into the wall. It was insanely intricate; every scale, every groove was present. It was almost as if a snake was petrified within the stone.

"Everybody! The wall's back!" She saw the illuminated faces of everyone turn back. And when they did, they were shocked.

They all wondered just how the wall reappeared, but that didn't need to matter at the moment. What mattered was that it was there, and that they were close to Ophiuchus.

Virgo placed her hand upon the wall. It was literally humming with celestial spirit energy. Perhaps there was something beyond the wall?

"We need to go to whatever is beyond this wall."

Wendy, however, was focusing on something else. Perhaps her eyes were playing tricks with her, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw somebody wearing a black, worn out cloak melt into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Calartemis.
> 
> Aka the first iPad user.
> 
> I sort of headcanon Dark Regulus to be a sort of mirroring magic that mirrors the spell's destructive capabilities, hence Leo's abilities during the ECS arc. Otherwise, how else would Leo be able to cast all those Dark Regulus spells that parodies Natsu's magic?
> 
> Regulus is a bright star, and Loke/Leo's magic is a magic in which light shines, so perhaps Dark Regulus would probably act a bit more like a black hole, and magic would get absorbed and thrown back.


	21. Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've managed to get past the wall, but in a turn of events, Lucy ends up tied up and alone...

They had found what could lead to Ophiuchus. The problem was, how.

Virgo sensed celestial spirit energy radiating from the rock, but other than that, it was hard to see just how the rock wall lead to Ophiuchus.

Obviously, there were no handles or anything like that; it could just be a decorated dead end.

"Maybe we should look somewhere else," Lucy suggested as she turned around.

"Lucy! Wait!" Wendy called out. She paused in her steps.

"I saw a person nearby a while ago, and I think that they're the reason the maze had stopped."

It was only then when the realisation had struck that the maze had, indeed, not moved since they had last come in contact with the wall.

"They were probably the same person who had flung us here as well," Erza pointed out.

A new question popped up in Lucy's mind, when she questioned to herself who the person was and why they were helping them.

The person was possibly the same person who had flung them towards the dead end

She had decided to put that question on hold for the moment, however; currently, their goal was to go protect Ophiuchus from Calartemis.

Go protect Ophiuchus from Calaremis…

Something didn't seem right.

"D'you think that we should break through this?" Gray asked.

"I don't see why not," Lucy replied.

"Aquarius'll try!" Aquarius piped up. Her golden urn materialised, and she pointed it towards the wall, prepared to fire when Erza called out to her.

"Wait!" Erza called out.

"Hm?" The urn's glow dimmed down. "Why?"

"Just in case the water doesn't break the wall, we'd, well, most of us, would drown." Aquarius drooped.

"O-oh. All right." She stepped back as the urn disappeared.

Lucy took pity on the adolescent spirit. She stepped forward and patted on her shoulder reassuringly.

She looked up in response.

"Don't worry too much about it," Lucy said. Aquarius smiled at that.

"Aquarius wasn't too upset over it, don't worry."

Virgo stepped forward instead.

"Stay back, everyone." Lucy was confused over why, but once she felt celestial spirit magic rush towards Virgo, she understood.

A huge gust of wind was created from the vacuum of Virgo's fist, rushing, rushing, making her fist glow bright.

The concentration of magic was so strong that it lit up the whole area like a star, and at last, it hit the wall, breaking it as if it was thin, brittle pottery.

They saw that beyond the wall was a deep, dark void, but before they could react, a powerful vacuum sucked them all into the darkness.

Lucy gasped in surprise, though it was masked by the blowing sound of the wind.

She tumbled and tumbled inside the pitch darkness as the twister tossed her around like a plastic bag. The darkness alarmed her, but something else alarmed her more.

She couldn't hear nor see anybody.

There was the darkness that masked everything in sight, but also the sound of the wind blowing that also masked everything.

She was alone.

Where was everyone?

Are they still tumbling within the void?

Or are they somehow transported to somewhere else?

Are they okay?

Suddenly, a hard surface collided against her head, stopping her thoughts.

And then she blacked out.

* * *

"Stop sleep."

A harsh kick to the side followed that, causing her to collapse left if it wasn't for the restraints on her wrists.

Lucy fluttered her eyes open. Her vision was blurry, and as soon as she woke, a sharp pain panged her head before another pain spread from her abdomen.

Ah right, she hit her head on something. And someone had kicked her harshly o n the side…

Kicked.

Restraints.

A gasp escaped her lips before her eyes flung open, only to be met with burning red eyes.

Her eyes opened wider.

Calartemis.

"Finally."

He flung his hand back, and a squelching sound followed when a dagger was stabbed at her lower abdomen.

The pain was absolutely _staggering._ And she screamed as she felt every bit of magic inside of her suck out dry, from the tips of her fingers and the top of her head, welling up all the way to the stabbed wound.

Black light shone as Lucy felt the magic vacuum out of her body, all the way into the dagger.

At last, the knife was pulled out.

Lucy collapsed as she felt her head getting lighter and warm blood run down her abdomen.

Her whole body was numb of energy. Similar to the time on Tenroujima where she lost her magic.

Lost her magic…

Did Calartemis steal her magic?

Nevertheless, she glanced up anyway.

She was housed in an opaque black crystal dome as big as an opera hall. When she looked back, she saw that she was tied to an enormous stalagmite of the same crystal.

Behind Calartemis, she spotted Ko and Feng.

A memory flashed of how Ko warned her not to go here. Why wasn't she helping her now?

Calartemis took a deep breath in, seemingly refreshed, as he wiped the dagger clean of the blood with a hankerchief. Lucy noticed that the dagger was made of some sort of black, opaque crystal, similar to the material of the dome. Even the floor was made of the same material.

It was then when she realised that the rest of her friends were not anywhere to be seen.

Natsu had a high amount of magic power. So did Erza. And Leo. Basically everybody else.

"Where are my friends?" She demanded.

Calartemis looked down at the powerless mage, and scoffed.

"Dispose of."

Disposed of…?

"What do you mean-" Lucy had to stop after the pain in the wound increased.

"What _you_ think?" Calartemis asked.

Disposed of…

Could they be dead?

Panic arose within Lucy.

No. They can't be dead. Perhaps they were just somewhere else. Perhaps they were imprisoned somewhere- they could escape if they were-

"Are they _dead_."

… they are…?

"The celestial spirits-"

"Betray you they."

What?

A sinking feeling formed within Lucy.

They... betrayed her? Why?

Why.

"Heh. Too bad…"

Why did they do it if half of Leo's soul was taken away?

"Journey wasted…"

Why did they do it if they clearly spoke of Calartemis with bitter hatrid?

"Turn you in they."

Why did they do it if they had been injured by Calartemis?

And-"

"How come then?" She spoke quietly.

"What?"

"HOW COME THEN?!"

"...Freedom."

Freedom…?

"What do you mean by that?"

Lucy could feel deep in her guts that Calartemis was lying. But still, she was interested over just what he had to say.

"Say… remember _eclipse_ celestial spirit?"

The eclipsed celestial spirits?

"What about it?"

"What you think?"

Lucy stayed silent. Unless Calartemis was involved with the eclipsed celestial spirit event..

It was when she realised something.

The eclipsed celestial spirits were technically the celestial spirits in the past. Shortly before, the celestial spirits helped her and Yukino close the eclipse gate.

Was Calartemis implying that the celestial spirits went past the eclipse gate? But the eclipse gate was connected to a time only 400 years ago, not 700.

Still, she gave a shot at it.

"What… did you do about it?"

He chuckled.

"Send I them with help of time traveller."

Time traveller?

"Ko."

Ko could time travel?

Ko walked forward at that. Just as she was close to him, Calartemis held her close.

Ko's eyes started to glow orange.

"Yes. Send she-"

And suddenly, everything was still.

Ko wriggled out of Calartemis' grasp as she walked over to Lucy.

She placed her hands over Lucy's wounds, and with a bright orange glow, it healed.

Lucy took a deep breath in as she felt energy replenish within her. She looked down, and she saw that her abdomen was completely healed. Even the cloth was fixed.

"We don't have much time," she explained.

Lucy wanted to ask several more questions. Like how she knew how to time travel, and how her wound healed.

"Ko, how did you know how to time travel? I thought that your magic was memory based-" Lucy paused when she remembered something.

Time traveller…

Memory based magic..

"Are you the one who sent me back in time?"

Ko paused.

"Yes." As she was talking, Ko's hair started to fade.

"Ko, your hair is turning brown."

"Don't worry about that. Listen up. You need to-"

"Ko…?"

They looked behind, and saw Calartemis, moving.

The spell had worn off.

But for the first time, Lucy had seen Calartemis somewhat fearful.

Very quickly, it was replaced to anger.

"Why did you betray me!" He punched Ko, and she cut her cheek from the stalagmite;s sharp edge as she fell over.

Ko disappeared.

This was the point of time when Ko used the eclipse gate's magic to go back in time.

"We… We could will rule world together…" he muttered as he stared into the empty space.

For a second, Lucy actually felt a little pitiful towards the God mage.

But it replaced to fear once he stared straight on at her.

He narrowed his eyes, and Lucy felt a big pain in her abdomen as her wound reopened somehow.

It bled, and bled and bled.

Again, she felt energy seep out of her. It seemed that Ko's magic for healing could only last for this long.

It wasn't too long before Lucy could no longer hold her eyes open for much longer.

Slowly, her eyelids closed.

"Ophiuchus."

From her half opened eyelid, she saw purple smoke come out and rise up into a vertical shape. She waited to see Ophiuchus to turn to a human

"Yes?"

"What you think we do to her?" She saw a glimpse of gold being pulled out.

"Well. She has a large magic capacity..."

What did she mean by that…?

She still had a lot of other questions.

What did Calartemis mean through 'rule the world together'?

Why did Calartemis strip her of her magic?

Why was Ko helping her?

But Lucy had no time to reply to that as she closed her eyes and faded into the darkness…

"LUCY!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Soz everyone for the wait.
> 
> I rewrote this chapter quite a number of times to get it right. That and a mixture of school and procrastination and then… yikes!
> 
> In case any of you are wondering, the reason why Ko had so much magic power was that she memorised the magic power of Calartemis and used that.
> 
> Calartemis saw Ko as an equal, which was what he meant.
> 
> Thank you all for being so patient!


	22. An Unexpected Outcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter has very intense moments that features betrayal and questionable acts in the name of 'redemption'. If you love Leo or if you're sensitive to such subjects, then it's best to turn away now. Ko is actually helping them to defeat Calartemis. Meanwhile they learn a dark truth from Leo...

The last thing that Natsu remembered was being sucked into a dark void.

And when he cracked open his eyes, the first thing he saw was darkness.

He sat up, but when he did so, he had to fall back down straight afterwards. What had been such a simple task had now become exhausting. His muscles ached all over, and demanded for rest while his veins felt as if they're replaced by solid lead, which weighed down all over.

While he did lie down, he realised something. No fresh air was present at all.

In the maze, the air was cool and refreshing even though they were underground, but here the air was all hot and stuffy instead.

And then he realised that they were not in the maze anymore.

"Hey," a voice from the ceiling whispered.

Natsu nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice from above. He looked up towards the ceiling, but was greeted only by darkness.

"Over here," came the same voice from behind.

Arachnen's voice.

Adrendaline cleared through his veins, forcing him to stand on his two feet as he stood his ground. Arachnen stood while holding a lantern that bathed the whole area in a soft glow. It highlighted Arachnen's sharp features and protruding eyeballs, making him resemble a skeleton that still had its skin on.

Natsu stood his ground, prepared for anything Arachnen would do. Arachnen only stared back, and snickered.

With his free hand hand, he pulled out his two black, fanglike daggers, and held them out in front of him.

And then they fell onto the cell floor with a clack.

Natsu stared down at the discarded daggers, surprised at this turn of events.

"I'm on your ssside." Arachnen shrugged. "Remember?"

On their side? Oh, right. Still, Natsu stood, weary of Arachnen's words.

Natsu heard a shuffling sound from behind Arachnen, and from what little light Arachnen's lantern offered, he saw that the others were stirring.

At first, they rubbed their heads, but when they saw Arachnen, they snapped out of their drowsy state and stood, prepared to fight.

"Wait," a different voice called out.

Their heads whipped around to the left where the voice came from- a shadow that managed to hide away from the lanter's light- and a figure trodded towards the light. When they saw the figure's black, tattered cloak, they immediately recognised who the figure was.

It was the same figure who had sent them back. But when the figure pulled back their hood, they were faced with an even bigger surprise.

It was Ko.

Ko's hair had faded from its rich amber colour to a limp brown, and she was panting, tired, but clearly alert.

"You don't have a lot of time left." She stopped to catch her breath. "You must hurry."

"What?"

"Whatever you do, do not let him activate the globe."

Globe? And then realisation struck.

"The celestial globe?"

"Yes." Before they could say anything, a golden glow lit from the bottom of the feet, and illuminated the cell brighter than Arachnen's meagre lantern. "And if that's not enough to convince you all, then know that your friend's life may be in danger as well."

Their sluggish brains tried to register what she meant by friend. Friend, friend… one of their friends are missing! Their heads whipped around, seeing who's missing.

Natsu, Gray, Wendy, Happy, Charlés, Erza, Virgo, Aquarius, Leo…

Lucy was gone.

Before they could properly react, Ko extended her hand out, and an orange coloured cloud engulfed them all.

And when the clouds cleared, they were gone.

Ko panted as she stared at where the mages and celestial spirits were.

And with one final pant, she collapsed onto her knees, head clammy with sweat and heart ramming against her chest.

All the magic inside of her was sucked out by the spell, and the lacrima walls certainly didn't help. Whatever remaining magical energy she had was gone.

She could only hope that they do what she asked. Otherwise, everything would fall at Calartemis' mercy.

A claw grabbed hold of her shoulder, and she froze.

Talons pierced into her skin. She tried to move away from whatever it was, but a hand clamped over her mouth just as she tried to do so.

She was too weak. With some more magic, then she could get out, but here, she was completely vulnerable. The talons dug in deeper, piercing her clothes and so painfully into her flesh, Digging deeper, deeper, and then she felt something get injected from under her skin.

Her eyes spun around, and from the bare corner of her eye, she saw that it wasn't a claw, but Arachnen's skeletal hands. And those talons were nails that dug deep into her flesh, so much so that the fingertips were barely visible.

"A-Arachen? What are you doing?" A bony face dipped down from the side, and she could see all of Arachnen's set of fangs gleam from the lantern's light, chilling her very soul.

First she felt agonising pain. Then she lost feeling in her left shoulder where the place of injection was, and soon, that feeling spread. Down to her arms and across her chest, and then she lost feeling there as well.

"Why… why are you doing this?" She could feel the venom crawl up her neck towards her head, down her waist...

"Reasssonsss…"

The last hiss of the word didn't quite sound right. The stone paved ground under her rippled into violent waves, and everything spun around...

The impact of the hard, cell floor was the last thing she felt before she lost consciousness.

* * *

Iris Hill.

They were back?

A slow clap echoed before a laugh made them all turn around.

"Congratulations."

There stood Calartemis, beaming and smiling, satisfied.

"Calartemis?"

"Why why, did you do good job, lion spirit."

At that, their eyes opened wide.

What?

Leo stood, wide eyed and shaking, all while said mage walked up to him.

"Leo, what's going on?" Virgo was confused. Why would Leo side with Calartemis?

"Tell them."

Leo's teeth bared as he gritted them.

"Shut up."

"Oh? What this? You going against me?"

Silence.

"Aww, no reply? Too bad." He was pushed aside, and Calartemis approached the rest of the party instead.

"Oh, but you come here for stop me, isn't it?" Again, he laughed. "Don't stand look gormless. And you all come here for girl, is not?"

They stood, surprised at his half prediction.

"Don't be surprise. Knew I already."

"What about Lucy?"

"Lucy? Heh. Gone."

Gone?

"You're lying." Flames erupted from within Natsu's fist.

"I can feel it in my guts that Lucy is still here. So tell me where she is already!" Calartemis glanced at Natsu with a curious look on his face, judging.

"Your spirit fiery, I think." He took a step forward. "Fight me. If you win, I tell you."

And then he threw a punch.

But his efforts were futile as Calartemis covered his fists, stopping them entirely.

His hand did not burn in the fire, however. Rather, from the smoke that rose up, it was as if his fist was… suffocating it. Before long, the flames that engulfed the fists were extinguished with a puff of smoke, and he was utterly unharmed.

"Hmm… fire dragon slayer?" He taunted, a sly smirk forming at the side of his mouth. It was as if he was looking down upon him.

"Wonder I what happen with fire god…" He stepped back, and wind rustled between their hair.

Black flames erupted from Calartemis' skin and clothes, engulfing him completely in flames and heating the whole area up like a furnace. Natsu was astounded as he felt beads of _sweat_ slip down from his forehead. Sweat! No fire had ever affected him in any way, not even Zancrow's. Calartemis' abilities were certainly more powerful than even Zancrow's magic ability.

But he cannot let that discourage him.

"Big deal! I've defeated a god slayer once, and I'll do it again! Wing slash of the fire dragon!"

Flames charged towards the god mage, but all was futile.

When the attack came into contact with Calartemis' own flames, it simply melted into hot air.

He smirked in result.

Natsu gritted his teeth.

Fighting Calartemis was going to be harder to defeat him than he had thought.

"You still haven't answered my question yet." He held his fist tight, and a fire lit up. "Where. Is. LUCY?!"

Again, Calartemis laughed.

"Gone. How much I tell you before you believe me?"

Natsu charged at Calartemis anyway, fist blazing up in fire. His fist collided to Calartemis and there was a mighty bang!

A snap sliced through the sound.

Natsu's head was backwards.

"NATSU!"

He fell back in front of them onto his back like a ragdoll. So much had happened in such a small time frame that it was hard to comprehend what had happened.

Calartemis beamed as he looked down at his handiwork, satisfied.

His eyes spun around, and he faced Leo.

"And you?" Leo simply stood, frozen. He stood there, mouth opening and closing, unsure of what to say.

"Aww, what this?" Calartemis mocked. "Cat got your tongue?" A hysterical laugh followed.

"Otherwise, thank. Too bad. Nothing will stop I." He held a hand up.

_Click!_

Black fog surrounded them all, making the whole area pitch black.

They were teleported to a calm forest as soon as the smoke disappeared.

They all stood up and looked around, as if it was all an illusion that would disappear at any moment.

Had, had it all happened? Everything had happened at such a fast pace that it was hard to comprehend that it had all happened.

Wendy rushed to Natsu's aid, and they stood anxiously.

"He's still alive."

Virgo thought over what Calartemis said over Leo helping him. What did he mean by that?

"Leo… what did Calartemis mean from agreement?"

Leo remained silent.

They know now. He's done for.

" Yeah!"

"... Nothing." Virgo narrowed her eyes. Panic gripped him like a vice, and he gulped as he felt goosebumps rise up.

"No, you are lying." Fear gripped his heart like a vice, forcing it to beat harder. He walked back. "What is it that you fear which makes you like this? What is it-"

"Nothing! It's nothing!"

"No it isn't!" She stomped forward, and then her eyes were up against his in an instant.

Something about the way that Virgo's neon blue eyes demanded him for an answer as she panted made him rethink.

He was in a dead end. It would be useless to weasel out of this, anyway.

Leo sighed.

"... fine." He faced away from them. For a moment, he wondered if what he was going to do was right. "... I've hid this from you two for long enough anyway…"

* * *

_He was furious._

_As the leader of the celestial spirits, it was his duty to protect them from harm. But for someone to harm them so much? It was utterly inglorious._

_How dare of he that he did such thing? Worse of all, why didn't he do something about it in the first place? All the moments that he had ignored such things, thinking that they were all fine, when in reality, they were not._

_When he took a deep breath of stale air, he knew that he had reached the human world. The place where he had appeared was massive and expansive. White marble coated every part of what he sees, but where was that man?_

_A quiet slurping sound made him turn his head around, only to face a man, far off in the corner of this room, peacefully sipping tea at a small table._

_He felt fury build up inside of him, and despite that, the man still hadn't noticed._

_How could he, no, how_ dare _he? How could he simply sip tea knowing that he had done such things? Visions of the injuries had reappeared, and that alone screamed vengeance._

_He banged his first at the table, snapping the thing table in half and making Calartemis look up. Expecting surprise, he saw instead a mild look of curiosity._

_"Ah." The teacup was placed onto the floor with a tink. "You are…?"_

_He felt fury burn up inside him, building up like a volcano about to burst. He took a deep breath. And in the most calm yet demanding manner he could manage right now, he said:_

_"Leo. Leader of the Zodiac spirits. And as the leader, I demand you to free the 9 spirits in your grasp."_

_Calartemis' eyes opened a bit more from surprise. And then he laughed hysterically._

_"What?" He was laughing wildly, like a hyena. "You came here just to say that?"_

_Leo was taken back as he watched Calartemis laughed more. Was he, was he seriously laughing at him? Why would he laugh at him? Didn't he announce himself as the leader of the Zodiac spirits? And what was he? A complete fool._

_Blood red eyes glanced towards Leo, and then Leo froze._

_"What did you call me?"_

_A chill went up his spine. Was, was a_ human _actually_ intimidating _him?_

_He shook his head._

_"Off topic. Break your contract with the Zodiac spirits, and I will leave."_

_"What if I don't?" Calartemis shot back. Leo paused as he searched for a comeback, but nothing came up._

_"Heh. I'll give you a deal."_

_Leo looked up._

_"Fight me. Win it, and the Zodiac spirits shall be free."_

_"Deal." Calartemis peered down at him, grinned, and clicked. At that, several other mages materialised._

_"You'd have to go through them first."_

* * *

_Who knew how long Leo had fought with Calartemis' lackies?_

_Days? Weeks? It felt like forever._

_But at the same time, who cares? The point was that they were down, and they won't be there to distract him from what he was going to do._

_Leo turned around, panting but content._

_"There," he declared. "Now fight me, you coward." Leo tightened his fist, and light engulfed it._

_Again, Calartemis laughed hysterically._

_"Ko!"_

_An orange haired woman appeared, and she clicked her fingers._

_Leo braced himself for an attack, but nothing came. Something about Calartemis' smirk unnerved him, and whatever it was, it was bad._

_"Look back."_

_What was it? More lackeys?_

_He turned around, and shock crashed into him like a wave._

_For no. It was something worse. Far, far worse._

_What were originally the images of Calartemis's lackeys faded away, and on the ground were the rest of the nine Zodiacs who were in Calartemis' hold._

_Gemi and Mini were lying down with their necks twisted at unnatural angles. Scorpio's leg was all but crushed. Aries' head was bleeding madly from the unhealed wound. Aquarius' face was faced down, but a pool of blood had already formed onto the marble floor. Virgo's arm was facing towards Leo, and snapped bone was poking out of the flesh..._

_He had to turn away, for it was too much for him to bear._

_And it was all because of him._

_No. Calartemis had tricked him. And rage built up inside of him exploded._

_"You… you… YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Leo charged towards Calartemis and punched him square in the jaw._

_Only by the time he did so, it was Virgo who received the blow. She made no sound when he did so, as she herself was unconscious. Lifelessly, Virgo flopped onto the ground. Leo stared down, shocked over what he had done._

_"... You fucking coward."_

_"You know, you still can do something."_

_He turned around._

_"Give me half your soul."_

_His freedom in return for ownership of that level? He scoffed. "Never." The anger had reached full peak now._

_A light shone around him, though it transcends into dark shadow that swallowed him whole._

_His magic had become a vacuum. Shining light turned into dark shadow. For it was desire that drove it;_

_A desire to kill._

_But Calartemis only grinned, amused._

_"Think about it, would you? Once you get back, they would no longer trust you. They would know you as that spirit who promised to protect them, but in turn, harmed them."_

_A knot of dread tightened inside him when he heard that, and the shadow weakened._

_"And killing me won't help that."_

_Realisation replaced the fury, bit by bit._

_He was right. Even if Calartemis was dead, then there was no doubt that he would be shunned by everybody. Nobody would approach him anymore out of sheer fear._

_"I can fix that, however. Ko can replace their memories with false ones."_

_"So that I will become more of a coward?" Again, he scoffed. "There's still the Celestial Spirit King." Calartemis' grin died down and raised an eyebrow. It seemed that this was a problem that he didn't think of._

_He turned around, back facing Leo, as if in deep thought._

_Leo felt a bit of triumph inside of him. But when Calartemis turned around, wide eyed and grinning, he felt a sense of worry._

_"But think about it. Would you? Say if you are indeed expelled from the celestial spirit world. Would you rather be remembered in fear or disgust, or would you rather be remembered as a loyal friend?"_

_It was a good point._

_"... Fine."_

_He walked forward, and held Calartemis' hand as if he was giving a handshake. A solid weight materialised between the space of their hands; his key._

_He can't remember much about what exactly happened. But there will always be this one thing that may burn into his memory forever._

_The sensation was absolutely agonising. It hurt at the calibre of being burnt alive. His whole body ached as bit by bit, half the soul ripped away from it, ripping away more, and more, and more._

_He remembered seeing Ophiuchus scream as her body was stripped from her spirit, but it was more from the shock of being ripped apart than it is from actual pain._

_Leo panted as he fell back onto his knees. Was it done? Was it really done? Or was it all imagined? He cannot recall how the process was done._

_He looked up, and saw Calartemis grinning. All real. All while he held a key that glowed red like hot metal._

_It was performed all right._

_His key. A spark of anger lit inside him, and he stood up-_

_"Stop!"_

_Every inch of Leo's body stopped and suspended in midair. Curiously, Calartemis looked at him._

_"Kneel!" His knees dropped down to the floor almost instantly._

_"Stand up!"_

_Like a stringed puppet, he stood up, though still he looked down as he held his fists tightly._

_How pathetic he was. How pathetic he was for doing it._

_"What? Are you disappointed with yourself?" Calartemis mocked as he raised Leo's head up. "At least you can be_

_He was powerless. Powerless in front of this man. Powerless because of his recklessness._

_"Return."_

_And he was back into the familiar world of stars, panting from shock._

_He stared upwards, into the infinite sky, and pondered; was it right, what he did? Three familiar faces came and shot him question after question after question, though he responded to none of them, for he was still shocked over what had happened. Until at last, he said two simple words:_

_"I lost."_

* * *

There was only silence when Leo finished his story. And dread filled him up completely.

For a second, he wondered if what he did was right- no. This was no right or wrong situation. This is a situation of the denial of the truth. Whatever had caused this whole mess to happen, it was because of that lie. So he will have to face the consequences.

When he looked back, he saw what he had expected; stunned expressions that were frozen on their faces.

Virgo and Aquarius was even more stunned. So their memories about the fight were… false? So they've been sympathising him for the wrong reasons?

But the more they thought about it, the more they remembered.

The false memory shattered, bit by bit, and then they remember it. , until all that was left under it was the cold, hard, bitter truth.

"Leo… why? Why did you do that?"

He stayed silent. Virgo could feel anger surge up inside her.

So Leo had been lying this entire time! How… how could he?! They had been pitying him for the wrong reasons! The trusted him, and what did he do? He made a deal to rewrite their memories! The punishment was bad, but… this was worse on so, so many levels.

"Leo, just, how could you-!"

But in a flash, Leo disappeared without another word.

* * *

 

Calartemis had expected himself to feel dried out and tired after he cast that spell. But no, he actually felt… rejuvenated. It wasn't surprising, as Iris Hill was indeed the closest barrier between the celestial spirit world and the human world.

So what now? He was without any help. Apart from that old geezer Feng, and it seemed that Arachnen had betrayed him also.

Traitors. All of them. Such filthy traitors they are.

But there was Ko. It was hard to imagine the plan working without Ko, especially since she was the one who suggested this plan. Now that he was trying it again, it might actually work this time round. He will complete this plan, with or without help.

"Hey. So how are we supposed to perform Liberum now?"

"Hm?" Ah, yes, Ophiuchus.

"We can't perform Liberum." Calartemis raised an eyebrow.

"What you mean we cannot perform Liberum? Globe in my grasp now."

"Astral Spirytus. We still need that." She sighed. "Sadly, my old body's destroyed now."

"Why not use your current body?" Ophiuchus rolled her eyes at that.

"It's human. I can't use this body."

"Maybe turn it into celestial spirit body?" Cognac eyes glanced up and looked at him, confused and perhaps astounded.

"... And how are you going to do that?"

Calartemis smirked as a result, eyes sparkling with craftiness. He held out his arm, and summoned a knife. He slit his wrist, and red blood dripped down furiously, all while Ophiuchus looked, surprised.

"Why are you-"

Ophiuchus stopped when she saw that the wound stopped bleeding so suddenly. At first, it was like a tap, but now it was like as if the tap had been turned off. Golden light shimmered over the wound, and then it shrunk, revealing new skin underneath, as if the slit had never happened.

Just like how a celestial spirit heals.

"Just some couple of step and you would become celestial spirit." Ophiuchus looked down.

"Hm. Well it's worth a try."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this chapter was hard to edit T_T. Also, holy smokes this was left for a long time. Heh...
> 
> So this was what Leo did that created his contract with Calartemis. Poor Leo. Again, his actions afterwards do contradict that.


	23. Truth

Virgo stared at the empty space where Leo stood, still stunned at the truth that he told her.

There was no way that he did all that. He didn't! Yet... the more she thought about it, the more everything made sense. Small flaws in her memory, once overlooked, now had so much more meaning. It was the reason why she knew that half of Leo's soul was gone. It was the reason why she had wounds that didn't align with previous ones.

She felt anger boil inside of her. So they were deceived! Leo deserved to be punished for this.

Virgo looked towards Aquarius on her right. She was just as shocked as Virgo. Even more so, perhaps. She sighed.

Meanwhile, Wendy sighed as she wiped sweat from her brow. Happy flew over, and leaned over Natsu, who laid still.

"Is Natsu gonna be alright?" He asked. Wendy looked down at Natsu. He still hadn't shown any sign of waking up.

"He will wake up. It's just… he's knocked out right now," she sighed. Happy nodded, but he looked down, sad.

"Oh. Okay."

They were interrupted when the bushes rustled. They whipped their heads around, and they saw a familiar silver man burst out of the thicket, wide eyed and wary.

"You must go back NOW! There was a mistake…" Argent halted when he saw Natsu lying down on the ground.

"Oh my... I'm..."

"He's just unconscious," Wendy quickly explained. Argent's features relaxed.

"Oh." He sat down and sighed, but perked up.

"Where's Ko?" He asked Erza. Erza glanced to the side.

"We-"

"I'm here," a voice from the bushes called out. They whipped their heads around to the voice, and Ko emerged out of them, tired but alert.

"Ko!"

"Arachnen betrayed us!" She looked around. "Wait, where's Leo?"

"He betrayed us!" Virgo called out. Miele looked at them with pity, and sighed.

"I can explain that. Let me explain what's going on here." She sat down, and they all did the same.

"My real name is Miele, and I work for the time department of the Magic Council."

"... Time department?"

"It's a fairly new thing that the Magic Council devised to solve mysteries from the past." Solve mysteries from the past? "Commissioned by historians to restore the current knowledge of the past." They nodded. Made sense. But Gray remembered how Ultear cannot turn back time, even when she had a large amount of magic power.

"Isn't using magic to control time energy consuming?"

"The Council solves this by giving us the parts of the Eclipse Gate, and they used that to allow us to time travel safely."

"Eclipse gate?" Virgo asked.

"Something from the future," Gray added quickly.

Miele reached behind and pulled out a necklace, where a tiny satchel hung. It was hidden away underneath her cloak (black and tattered, Wendy noted) and her tunic so that they didn't notice. In the satchel must be the pieces of the Eclipse Gate.

"Besides, it's much easier to travel back yourself and back again than to join two timelines together. Anyway, a council member realised that the eclipse celestial spirits were the past forms of the present day celestial spirits." At that, Virgo and Aquarius' attention was caught. "I was assigned to go back to this timeline to find out why the celestial spirits wrecked havoc-" Virgo raised an eyebrow, and Aquarius tilted her head to the side. Seeing Aquarius and Virgo's confused expressions, Miele stopped explaining.

"The celestial spirits wrecked havoc?" Aquarius asked.

"Yes. And…" She looked to the side, unsure. "It seemed that they were made by you. Or at least, your forms now." Forms? Now they were interested. Confused, but nonetheless interested.

"The celestial spirits changed forms?" Aquarius asked.

"Yeah," Happy jumped in. "Out of the blue, you all just changed, and it had something to do with the eclipse gate."

"Speaking of the eclipse gate, The department realised that the incident was linked back to sometime here. And so I was sent to

"I convinced Calartemis to hire me, and I've been doing his business for quite some time now." She looked down, and reflected for a moment. sighed. "I apologise for the various attacks, since I had to convince Calartemis that I was working for him, but now that he's fully aware that I'm against him... it doesn't matter that much now."

They sat, trying to digest the information they were told. Before they finished processing all the information, Miele said:

"We have to go now."

"Hm?"

"Calartemis' planning to become immortal by becoming a celestial spirit-"

"Turning into a celestial spirit?!"

"Yes. And he's going to perform Liberum again."

"Again?"

"I will get to that. Such disturbances would bring the attention of the Celestial Spirit King." She looked up.

"Anyway, familiar with the Eclipse Celestial Spirit King?"

"... Yeah?"

"That was him."

They were shocked. What? Calartemis was the Eclipse Celestial Spirit King?

"He went to the future, and completely turned into a celestial spirit there. From then on, he summoned the Celestial Spirit King, which created the various natural disasters because of the time difference. When he turned into a celestial spirit, he turned into this spirit matter and attached himself onto the Celestial Spirit King, engulfing him whole. His keys were still connected to the celestial spirits, and so just before he fully transformed, he used that to summon them. It created an effect where the celestial spirits now were summoned to the future timeline, but the magic was scrambled so that only their souls were summoned. And so their spirits latched onto the bodies of the future celestial spirits, and Calartemis was going to make them perform Liberum to empower him. Fortunately, you all stopped him, but he's trying Liberum again in this timeline. You must hurry. If he does, then everything would fall at his mercy."

Compared to the previous information dump, this one seemed even more shocking. The serious look on Miele's face proved that it was all real. Virgo looked down. It was all so hard to process.

"So that was why our memories were so muddled."

"Hm?"

"We thought that it was a dream. But it was not."

Miele looked around. The other members of the party all looked really shocked. Especially Argent.

Wasn't Argent not supposed to know this? She stood up, and walked towards Argent's direction.

"Hey, what-"

"Excuse me, this is classified information." She clicked her fingers, and Argent blinked.

Virgo stared. Judging from how Argent looked confused, she probably altered his memory.

"Isn't Argent…"

"He's from this time period."

"But what about Aquarius and Virgo?" Aquarius asked.

"You needed to know this." They nodded.

"Know what?"

"Nevermind."

Miele stood up and clicked her fingers. A portal opened up, which showed the black, asphalt mountains. "We need to go now."

Happy realised something.

"Wait, then what about Lucy?" Miele widened her eyes, and panicked.

"Ophiuchus is using her as a vassel."

"What?!"

"For astral…" She realised something. For astral spirytus the celestial spirits were needed. And she raised her head to the celestial spirits' direction.

Only golden shimmers remained of Virgo and Aquarius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update, another couple of months heh. I'm more involved in another project right now, but I will finish this story.
> 
> Anyway, I made an eclipse Lories Tumblr, ecsloriesdump. Go check it out if you can, since I'm more active there


	24. Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo goes back to the spirit world. And then he remembers everything.

The silence of the celestial spirit world was jarring compared to the chaos that he had been in.

For a moment, Leo just stood, letting the silence swallow him whole.

He realised that he was holding his breath, and breathed out.

Silence. He stood, as empty as the infinite sky above him. And then a million meteors of thoughts zipped inside his head.

What had he done? No no, that was bound to happen anyway, what had he done in the first place? Why did even he agree to do such thing? Worst of all, Calartemis had now reached his peak power. No, that wasn't what was the worst thing that had happened. The worst thing was that he doomed them all, yes. No. Not quite right either. It was-

_"Leo, how could you-!"_

All the thoughts halted. All but one. Yet why did this one thought alone hurt so much more? Once it started, it cannot stop replaying. He can never forget that pain in Virgo and Aquarius' eyes. He let them down. He had betrayed them. What if he didn't make the agreement? Yes, that was the worst thing that had happened.

Lucy.

She was held prisoner by Calartemis somewhere. And despite his self vow, Calartemis still got her in the end. What had been done to her? That was the worst part; knowing that whatever damage she had received, no matter how bad, he was responsible for all of it. He felt like he was falling. Falling into oblivion. Just… falling.

What if he had told her earlier on? No no, what if-

"Hey."

He snapped out of his internal musings, and realised that Aries was looking at him, puzzled but judgemental.

"... Hey."

It was all he could reply with, but at least it was something. She raised an eyebrow, not entirely convinced.

She casually folded her arms. "Where the hell's Virgo and Aquarius?"

All the goosebumps on his neck risen at those words. He stayed silent.

"Also, what were you doing in the human world exactly?"

Still, he stayed quiet, even when Aries walked right up against him.

"Leo. Where are they? Where the hell were _you_?"

The anger in her eyes were potent, and panic arose inside of him. How was he supposed to answer that question? That he was misleading them to their doom? That he had been helping Calartemis? No no, even if he wanted to, it would take too long to explain, too messed up to clarify.

"C'mon, say it."

Even with all the peer pressure, Leo only stared into empty space with glassy eyes. Something wasn't too right about how he stayed quiet. His brow was scrunched up in concentration. His breathing was too controlled. His eyes were glassy from fear. In fact, beads of sweat started to roll down his face.

Whatever happened to Virgo and Aquarius, it wasn't good.

"Hey! Snap out-!" All of a sudden, it was as if the wind was knocked out of her as she disappeared.

"ARIES!"

Golden dust swirled where she once stood. Leo stared, too shocked to act. It was too late.

Calartemis had summoned her.

For what? For… for...

And then he remembered.

* * *

 

_Lights flickered in a distant city as Leo stood on top of the grassy hill. They were in Fiore, sure, but the city was too advanced to be from here. The many lights, the shape of the buildings, the size, too. Furthermore, there was much more magical energy here, and he felt a bit more… energised. Fiore didn't have this much magic at all._

_"Where are we?"_

_"So. What is one thing that separates a God from humans?" Calartemis asked, ignoring Leo's question. Humans. He scoffed. Calartemis was so power hungry, he didn't even think of himself as human anymore._

_At the scoff, Calartemis narrowed his eyes at him. He gulped._

_"Power-"_

_"No no. And...?"_

_"... Immortality." Realisation struck him like a whip. Calartemis wanted to gain immortality, so that he could become a God._

_"Yes! And do you know how I'm going to do that?" He asked with an unsettling grin._

_Leo stayed silent. He didn't know, but he knew that whatever it was, it was bad._

_"Well. You see, there is a ritual to turn one into a celestial spirit."_

_"... what?" Leo couldn't help but laugh. Of all the ways to gain immortality, and Calartemis just happened to choose the most tedious? No wonder he was crazy._

_"Quiet." His laugh disappeared at once._

_"I doubt that it would work. Nobody-"_

_"Shut up."_

_Leo felt his lips shut immediately._

_"Say, you've heard of the ritual used to summon the Spirit King?" He asked. "Apparently, it takes three keys to summon the Celestial Spirit King, and six for a stardress. Is that correct?"_

_Leo nodded._

_"Speak. You're not a mannequin."_

_"That's correct." Calartemis smirked, and pulled out Leo's key. Annoyance filled him when he saw it._

_"Anyway, you need all of the Zodiac keys to become a celestial spirit yourself. However," he twirled the key around his fingers. "In doing so, you need to break all of the keys. But I'm not just going to do that, am I?"_

_What?_

_"So what are you going to do, then?" But then realisation hit him. "Are you… are you channelling all your magic energy into one key?" An enormous amount of celestial spirit energy was required to even summon the Celestial Spirit King, hence why it took three keys to summon him. Furthermore, breaking a key was a side effect of channelling too much magical energy into it._

_"Correct! Heh, clever lion!" Calartemis pulled out his key- forged iron red from the soul splitting. He was bound to him or all of eternity. Even if his key was broken, they were contracted until his very bones turned to ash. So in doing so, Calartemis didn't have to lose a celestial spirit._

_Leo bit back his frustrations. He doubted that the ritual would work. He hoped that it wouldn't work._

_Calartemis stood back, stood tall, and took deep breaths in, preparing for the transformation. The wind picked up its pace, and spirit energy started to circle around him. He could feel the ethernano around him rush into him, rejuvenate him at first, but very quickly become nauseous and dizzy._

_"I dissolve this mortal body! Open, gate of mine!"_

_A waterfall of light crashed onto them with the force of a waterfall. Insufferable pain chorused his body as he felt every bit of energy sucked clean out of his cells._

_Nausea overcame him, and an insufferable headache hammered at his head, until finally, it was done._

_Tired, Leo fell to his knees. He panted, and the headache, though painful, was at least more bearable. It struck him that he didn't hear Calartemis at all, and so he raised his head._

_The macabre sight that he saw afterwards was enough to shock him into forgetting about his pain completely._

_Calartemis' neck skin was split, and instead of blood and flesh was a blue slime that oozed out of the rag skin body._

_The slime multiplied and multiplied, and oozed out at an alarming rate. It seemed as if he was made of blue starry slime from the start, and that the skin was simply a limp bag. No bones, no organs, just endless blue ooze._

_And it grew bigger and bigger, multiplying and multiplying until the hill was practically miniscule to it._

_A flash of white light flashed behind him. Shaking, Leo turned his head around, and gasped._

_In the sky was the Celestial Spirit King._

_Did the energy involved cause so much of a disturbance that the Spirit King came?_

_Without a warning, the slime latched onto the Celestial Spirit King. Leo could only watch in horror as the slime spread, and His Majesty was powerless against it. The King! The strongest of the celestial spirits, taken down by this matter of the remains of this insane wizard!_

_The slime morphed into an abstract figure with blank features, like a mannequin. Even the 'head' didn't have any facial features at all. The thing's 'head' turned towards him. A flash of white followed, and darkness followed._

* * *

 

Liberum.

Astral Spirytus.

The banishment keys.

And he remembered. He remembered everything. Slowly, strings of connection started to form.

Calartemis was performing Liberum as well as the celestial spirit ceremony again, except that instead of channelling all his energy into one key, he was going to summon each and every one of them one by one. After that, he may summon the celestial spirit king again, and overtake him. Could he do that now that again?

Ophiuchus was behind this somehow. She's plotting with Calartemis for something. Furthermore, there was Lucy, and he had dreaded feeling about her state.

He needed to go. He needed to go now! He couldn't just stay and do nothing! Each second thinking here was probably around an hour wasted.

Before soon, only shimmers of golden dust remained where Leo stood, and the celestial spirit world was once again shrouded in silence.


End file.
